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An international forum for exchange of knowledge of power system impacts of wind power has been formed under the IEA Implementing Agreement on Wind Energy. The task “Design and Operation of Power Systems with Large Amounts of Wind Power” is analysing existing case studies from different power systems.There are a multitude of studies made and ongoing related to cost of wind integration. However, the results are not easy to compare. This paper summarises the results from 15 case studies.

This paper reports recent findings from IEA Wind TCP Task 25, which compiles international experiences and research related to large-scale integration of wind and other renewable energy. In the paper, we address the main challenges for market integration of variable renewable energy, relating to price formation, cost recovery, balancing and other grid services. The paper gives an overview of recent scenario studies on electricity price impacts of (1) various generation, energy storage and demand types in different markets, and (2) different market designs and energy/climate policies. Studying markets with very high shares of variable renewable energy requires an improved set of analysis tools for forecasting market outcomes, estimating flexibility needs and sources, and assessing resource adequacy. Key market features need to be investigated within these improved analytical capabilities for systems transitioning to high shares of variable renewable energy, storage and flexible demand. System services that can be supported by markets will likely need to be revisited. Finally, this paper identifies open questions and suggested future market design work for supporting systems with very high shares of variable renewable energy, which are to be addressed in follow-up work of Task 25 collaborative research.

High integration of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) plants in distribution systems leads to new technical challenges: reverse-active power and voltage rise in low-voltage (LV) and medium-voltage (MV) grids. These challenges limit the maximum amount of power can be produced by PVs in LV and MV grids, called the hosting capacity (HC). Battery storage systems (BSSs) have been used in many studies to decrease the reverse power and improve the HC by controlling the active power. However, the influence of a central BSS on the HC can be greatly improved by using a quadratic power control, simultaneous active and reactive power control, and by selecting of the optimal battery size, the converter size, and the place of the central BSS. The effectiveness of the quadratic power control was not seen in previous works due to the fact that grids with one level of voltage without modeling of MV/LV transformers were simulated. This paper develops a method to select the optimal size of the battery and converter unit as well as the optimal place of an LV-central BSS having an optimal quadratic power control. The simulation results show considerable effects of the optimal selection of an LV-central BSS on the HC improvement. QC 20180327

High penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) in distribution systems leads to reverse active power and voltage rise in low voltage (LV) grids, which limits the hosting capacity. Energy storage systems (ESSs) have been used to improve the hosting capacity by decreasing the reverse active power in some literature. ESSs can still improve the hosting capacity more by providing reactive power. The reactive power shows a little effect in existing researches, because they have mostly simulate LV grids without modeling transformers. However, the high reactance of the transformer magnifies the effectiveness of the reactive power control even more than the active power in some buses. This paper develops an optimal method for placement, sizing, and active and reactive power control of a central ESS to improve the hosting capacity. The simulation results in highly RES penetrated grids at Germany show the effectiveness of the proposed method. QC 20180327

The development of large amounts of wind and/or solar energy will have an impact on bulk electricity markets. These variable generation sources increase the level of variability and uncertainty that the power system operator must manage. In this paper we discuss the impact that electricity markets have on the wind producer, using examples from the Nordic system. We also describe two market structures that will help induce both the needed flexibility, whether from generation or load, and sufficient capacity. We also provide some general guidelines for market design and simple tests that can help identify how a proposed market would function. We close with suggestions for future research.