Integrating Renewable Resources in a Connected Utility World

Recently, there have been number of news items talking about the problem associated with integrating renewable resources into the utility distibution grid. The main issue is the intermittent nature of the renewable energy supply. One cannot control when the sun will shine or when the winds will blow, etc. The other problem is that the renewable generation may not in many cases match the peak demand requirements of the grid. Suggested solutions include electric storage, distributed microgrids, convert power to hydrogen and then use that for power generation as needed, etc. A key point to determining what solution will work for any given utility is going to depend on how well that utility knows the key characteristics of its reneable resources.

What we mean here is that the first step is for the utility to put in place a system to collect operational and performance data from each of its renewable resources [solar, wind, hydro, etc] - these should include clear tracking data that show how much power each resource provides keyed to applicable parameters: for instance, for a solar PV unit, it would include rated capacity of the system, the actual generation delivered based on incident sunlight, whether the unit is tracking or not, variance limits that alert the grid when the system is malfunctioning. With such tracking data, the utility will be in a position to forecast accurately what would be available from each resource during peak load requirements and dispatch the resources matched to the load requirements.

Additional reading:

Using renewable energy to generate H2

Using microgrids

Talking of renewable resources, this article talks about artificial leaf [seriously, I am not making this up]:

Debut of the first "practical" artificial leaf - Enjoy.