Complementarity Roses Evaluating Spatial Complementarity in Time between Energy Resources

Spatial representation of temporal complementarity between three variable energy sources using correlation coefficients and compromise programming

Renewable energy sources have shown remarkable growth in recent times in terms of their contribution to sustainable societies. However, integrating them into the national power grids is usually hindered because of their weather-dependent nature and variability. The combination of different sources to profit from their beneficial complementarity has often been proposed as a partial solution to overcome these issues. Thus, efficient planning for optimizing the exploitation of these energy resources requires different types of decision support tools. A mathematical index for assessing energetic complementarity between multiple energy sources constitutes an important tool for this purpose, allowing a comparison of complementarity between existing facilities at different planning stages and also allowing a dynamic assessment of complementarity between variable energy sources throughout the operation, assisting in the dispatch of power supplies. This article presents a method for quantifying and spatially representing the total temporal energetic complementarity between three different variable renewable sources, through an index created from correlation coefficients and compromise programming. The method is employed to study the complementarity of wind speed, solar radiation and surface runoff on a monthly scale using continental Colombia as a case study during the year of 2015.•This paper describes a method for quantifying and spatially representing energetic complementarity between three renewable energy sources.•The method quantifies energetic complementarity by combining known metrics: correlations and compromise programming.•The proposed index for energetic complementarity assessment is sensitive to the time scale adopted.

Consumer Stock Ownership Plans (CSOPs)—The Prototype Business Model for Renewable Energy Communities

The 2018 recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) defines “renewable energy communities” (RECs), introducing a new governance model and the possibility of energy sharing for them. It has to be transposed into national law by all European Union Member States until June 2021. This article introduces consumer stock ownership plans (CSOPs) as the prototype business model for RECs. Based on the analysis of a dataset of 67 best-practice cases of consumer (co-) ownership from 18 countries it demonstrates the importance of flexibility of business models to include heterogeneous co-investors for meeting the requirements of the RED II and that of RE clusters. It is shown that CSOPs—designed to facilitate scalable investments in utilities—facilitate co-investments by municipalities, SMEs, plant engineers or energy suppliers. A low-threshold financing method, they enable individuals, in particular low-income households, to invest in renewable projects. Employing one bank loan instead of many micro loans, CSOPs reduce transaction costs and enable consumers to acquire productive capital, providing them with an additional source of income. Stressing the importance of a holistic approach including the governance and the technical side for the acceptance of RECs on the energy markets recommendations for the transposition are formulated.

Simplified evaluation of energetic complementarity based on monthly average data

Energetic complementarity is a subject that has been holding more and more attention from researchers in recent years, being a concept that can be applied both in energy planning stages and in phases of operation of energy systems based on renewable energy resources. The complementarity between two renewable sources of energy has three components: time-complementarity, energy-complementarity and amplitude-complementarity, and can be determined between raw energy availabilities or between energy generated by power plants. Complementarity can be evaluated between two renewable resources in the same place or between two renewable resources in different places and these two types can be denominated respectively as temporal and spatial complementarity. This method allows simplified evaluation of the energy complementarity between two renewable resources by comparing basic parameters obtained from series of monthly average values that characterize these resources. Finally, an application example clarifies the application of the method. •The method allows a quick and visual but expeditious evaluation of energetic complementarity.•This method provides a reference value for the application of more complex methods for evaluation of complementarity.•Monthly average data allows the comparison of renewable resources with different characteristics of intermittency and variability.

Qualitative evaluation of spatial complementarity between renewable energy resources with complementarity roses

Energetic complementarity is a subject that has been concentrating more and more attention of the researchers around the world in the last years, a concept that can be applied both in energy planning and in operation of energy systems based on renewable energy resources. Spatial complementarity is the energetic complementarity evaluated between two renewable resources in different locations and, as well as the complementarity evaluated between resources in the same location, has three components: time-complementarity, energy-complementarity and amplitude-complementarity. At the same site, however, complementarity assessment can involve multiple resources simultaneously, and the study of these circumstances requires appropriate tools to handle such information.This method paper describes a method to build complementarity roses expressing the spatial complementarity between two or more renewable energy resources throughout a region, appropriate for the expression of this complementarity through maps.

Maximizing the Economic Benefits of a Grid-Tied Microgrid Using Solar-Wind Complementarity

The increasing use of intermittent, renewable energy sources (RESs) for electricity generation in microgrids (MGs) requires efficient strategies for reliable and economic operation. Complementarity between RESs provides good prospects for integrating several local energy sources and reducing the costs of MG setup and operations. This paper presents a framework for maximizing the economic benefits of a grid-tied MG by exploiting the spatial and temporal complementarity between solar and wind energies (solar-wind complementarity). The proposed framework considers the cost of energy production from different RESs and the cost of bi-directional energy exchange with the main grid. For a given RES mix, a minimum system power loss (SPL) threshold can also be determined. However, at this SPL threshold, MG energy exchange cost is not always minimized. The framework determines the optimized SPL value (above the threshold) at which MG energy exchange cost gets minimized. Through this framework, MG operator can decide appropriate RES mix and can achieve various tradeoffs according to the energy production cost, solar-wind complementarity of the site and its required economic objectives.

Simulating hybrid energy systems based on complementary renewable resources

The complementarity between energy resources can influence the performance of hybrid generation and storage systems, and can also decisively influence their design. Renewable resources may have intermittent characteristics that make the study of the influence of complementarity on the performance of hybrid systems quite difficult. The establishment of a performance limit of hybrid systems based on renewable resources and the study of the effects of complementarity considering this limit can provide interesting results. This performance limit can be established with an idealization of the mathematical functions describing the energy availability of the explored renewable resources. This article presents a method for analyzing the performance of hybrid systems based on complementary resources. The method allows to evaluate the influence of different levels of complementarity between the exploited resources on the cost of energy and capacity shortage. Utilizing idealized energy availability, the result sets a performance limit.

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A method to evaluate the impact of complementarity on the performance and reliability of hybrid systems.

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The energy availabilities of the renewable sources are idealized and allow the characterization of a limit of performance.

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Different levels of complementarity can be related with design parameters of hybrid energy and storage systems.