The intersection between technological evolution and regulatory adjustments opens the door to options which have been thought-about for years within the renewable sector. That is the case in international locations corresponding to Spain, one of many first to mix the potential of wind and photo voltaic vitality to optimize the capability of the electrical energy grid. This is named the hybridization of installations. What does it encompass? Principally, it includes wind farms and photovoltaic vegetation working in a coordinated method on the identical location. Thus, the contribution of green power on the identical level of connection to the electrical energy system won’t be so conditioned by whether or not the wind is blowing or the solar is shining. And never solely that, synergies cut back the environmental footprint of infrastructures and optimize the usage of energy grids.
Maximizing connection capability has been a longstanding aim for renewable facility operators, particularly for wind farms. By integrating complementary photo voltaic vegetation alongside wind installations, operators can considerably enhance vitality supply with out pricey upgrades or grid saturation dangers. Energy grids are pricey infrastructures, so making an attempt to profit from them is smart.
Profiting from renewable infrastructure
Trendy electrical energy methods are normally solely safe, as with the Spanish system. In apply, they’re designed to keep away from blackouts or incidents resulting from grid congestion, making it potential to ship extra vitality than initially deliberate to the licensed connection factors.
Wind farms hardly ever attain their most licensed energy when they’re related to the grid to ship the vitality generated. Even in instances of excessive wind, when the wind turbines are working at their most rated energy, it’s rare that the utmost licensed connection capability is reached as a result of there are all the time some losses within the transmission strains or because of the wind generators’ personal consumption. As well as, when there’s much less wind, half or the entire injectable capability at a given level within the grid stays unused.
Given this untapped potential, the novel idea of hybridizing installations arose to benefit from unused capability on the connection factors, with out jeopardizing the security of the electrical energy system.
A regulatory push for hybridization
Technological capability alone is inadequate with out robust legislative assist, however substantial progress is being made on that entrance too. Spain took a pioneering step in 2020 by enacting a regulation (RD 1183/2020) that explicitly permits for hybridization tasks of present era amenities utilizing the identical connection level and entry capability already granted.
This authorized framework gives the required protection for hybridization and streamlines the executive procedures for such tasks. The regulation introduces an abbreviated course of for hybridizing installations with present amenities with licensed grid connections, slicing processing instances in half.
Major benefits of hybridization
As will be seen, the hybridization of renewable installations has a number of benefits, which will be summarized within the following factors:
- It favors the development of recent renewable amenities and, consequently, compliance with worldwide commitments to decarbonize the electrical energy system.
- Will increase the penetration of renewables within the system by making higher use of the grid’s capability to soak up the vitality generated in these amenities.
- It takes benefit of present infrastructures, corresponding to substations, energy strains, accesses, and so on., which reduces the environmental footprint and funding prices.
- Through the use of complementary sources, electrical energy era is extra fixed in a hybridized facility, which is optimistic for the stability of the facility system. It additionally will increase the capability issue – the time during which a facility generates energy – relative to the earlier non-hybridized facility.
- Connection and start-up instances are accelerated by rushing up the authorization process for brand spanking new installations that hybridize with pre-existing ones.
In the direction of renewable (and sensible) vitality
The laws allow the hybridization of various renewable applied sciences, however the prevailing situation includes a brand new solar photovoltaic plant being mixed with an present wind farm. Spain is witnessing quite a few tasks adopting this strategy, set to develop into operational within the coming months. ACCIONA Energía, a distinguished renewable vitality firm within the nation, has already recognized hybridization tasks totaling over 2,000 MW, with capacities starting from 7 MW to 50 MW.
Initially, the thought was to enrich wind era utilizing new photovoltaic vegetation, filling the capability gaps not utilized by wind farms. Nonetheless, developments in vitality administration have led to a shift towards “sensible operation.” In particular hybrid installations, an automatic management system decides the vitality contribution from the photo voltaic plant and wind farm primarily based on elements like scheduled upkeep, grid necessities, and market costs.
Estimates from superior research on hybridization in Spain point out that the mixed vitality output from a wind farm and a photo voltaic plant can improve by a mean of over 189% in comparison with the wind farm’s standalone era, sharing the identical connection level. Roughly 5% of the entire vitality generated can’t be injected into the grid resulting from connection level limitations, whereas the remainder is efficiently fed into the system.
Though wind farm hybridization with photovoltaic vegetation presently dominates, researchers are exploring different technological choices to search out the optimum mixture for every situation, together with varied era sources and complementary applied sciences like energy storage.
