“Identify and support improvements of suitable FLEXIBILITY OPTIONS (RES generation, flexible thermal power generation, load, storage) to ensure adequacy and security of the whole power system”.

Task co-leaders:
– INDIA – Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee – IITR
– CANADA – Natural Resources Canada – NRCan

Sub-tasks:

  • 4.1 Identifying the key Flexible generations
  • 4.2 Optimal planning and scheduling of RES power plants
  • 4.3 Innovative approaches for energy storage selection and control
  • 4.4 Localised power balancing
  • 4.5 Advancement of existing demand response strategies
  • 4.6 Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Coordination of Flexible Resources

Scope

The energy landscape is experiencing fundamental and rapid changes worldwide. Centralized energy systems are being decarbonized and distributed energy resources (DERs) are becoming more prominent, facilitated by many factors such as incentives to RES and the falling costs of technologies, enabled by advances in power system management and information and communication technologies. The exponential growth of variable and distributed energy resources and the changing nature and dynamics of demand (including electrification) can affect the planning, operation, reliability and resilience of the power system and will require an increasing deployment of smart grid technologies.

This task mainly focuses on addressing challenges in fostering all possible energy system flexibility to ensure adequacy and security within the power system, especially in the context of high penetrations of variable renewable energy resources in all subsystems (bulk generation, transmission, distribution and microgrid).

Main objectives

It is known that at high RES penetrations, the variability associated with many types of renewable generation can expose the system to threats not experienced before, leading to, e.g., power flows problems, transmission congestion, frequency stability issues and voltage variations.

The main objective of this task is to address the needs of enhanced flexibility options that are required by the evolution of the conventional grid to a smart grid with high penetration of renewable energy generation (RES), spanning from the planning phases down to the real-time control challenges, addressing all flexibility opportunities available from generation, network, storage, load, markets and sector coupling. Initially the task will focus on electrical system only, addressing system coupling in subsequent phases.

Besides technical approaches, this task also considers the economic and societal aspects of system and technology planning and design to determine the most cost-effective approaches.