Characteristics of Wind and Solar Power For Decision Makers Jay Apt Tepper School of Business and Department of Engineering & Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University June 13, 2011
Jan 17, 2016
Characteristics of Wind and Solar PowerFor Decision Makers
Jay Apt
Tepper School of Business and
Department of Engineering & Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
June 13, 2011
Briefing given to 2 sets of decision makers
• FERC staff May 26, 2011– Jamie Simler, the Director of FERC’s Office of Energy Policy
and Innovation;– Arnie Quinn, the Director of the Division of Economic and
Technical Analysis within the FERC Office of Energy Policy and Innovation;
– Ed Murrell, the Deputy Director of the Division of Economic and Technical Analysis
– Aaron Bloom, the "forecasting guy" in that office.
• Equinox Energy Summit June 5-9, 2011– 17 Ontario and Canada federal government ministers and
staff
2
3
Hydroelectric
Wind
Geothermal
4
Operating Wind FarmsWind farms > 5 MW
5
Land use can be benign
6
Or, Not so Benign
8
Extreme wind events are much more likely than predicted by Gaussian statistics
9
Gaussian (normal) statistics
Actual Texas data
Wind sometimes fails for many days
5 10 15 20 25 30Date in January 2009
250
500
750
1000
1250
1500
WM
BPA Balancing Authority Total Wind Generation
Sum of ~1000 turbines
11
15 Days of 10-Second Time Resolution Data
Smoothing by Adding Wind Farms… has diminishing returns
Source: Katzenstein, W., E. Fertig, and J. Apt, The Variability of Interconnected Wind Plants. Energy Policy, 2010. 38(8): 4400-4410.
Hydroelectric Power has Droughts
14
Wind Probably Does Too
Source: Katzenstein, W., E. Fertig, and J. Apt, The Variability of Interconnected Wind Plants.
Energy Policy, 2010. 38(8): 4400-4410.
16
Operating Solar PVUnits > 5 MW
17
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
1400000 1450000 1500000 1550000
Seconds since 00:00:00 Jan 1, 2007k
W
0
1000
2000
3000
250 750 1250
kW
(b)
Comparison of Wind with Solar PV
4.6 MW TEP Solar Array (Arizona)
Minutes
kW
18
Nameplate capacityCapacity Factor: 19%
19
CO2 and NOx from natural gas that fills in
+
+
+
1
2
n
=
Firm PowerVariable Power
Compensating Power
Time
Power
Gas
Wind
20
Emissions Factors
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 10
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
(Penetration Factor)
CO
2 E
mis
sion
s (t
onne
s/M
Wh)
Expected
Predicted
(a) LM6000
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 10
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
(Penetration Factor)
NO
x Em
issi
ons
(kg/
MW
h)
Expected
Predicted
(b) LM6000
21
Final Comments
• None of this means that wind or solar (if costs ever come down) can't be used at large scale, but wind/solar will require a portfolio of fill-in power (some with very high ramp rates, some with slow), good land use planning, and R&D to optimize emissions control for fast and deep ramping.