Topic: Modeling Intermittent RESSubscribe | Previous | Next
Henrik Von Sivers 11/19/2021
Hello, I have a question about modeling electricity generation from solar pv and wind power. According to the exercise, a capacity credit should be added to handle the intermittance of these sources. However, should this still be included if I add a yearly availabilty shape, which let the availabilty vary for the different seasons. Would really appreciate some help with this! //Henrik
Charlie Heaps 11/19/2021
1 Like The Capacity Credit (CC) variable in LEAP does not affect dispatch. It is only used when calculating endogenous capacity additions. If affects how much a unit of capacity "counts" towards the reserve margin. If the CC is less than 100% the plant counts proportionately less than its rated capacity. Typically firm capacity (e.g. baseload fossil or nuclear) is given a CC = 100% and variable RE is given a CC of much less than 100%. The result is that a scenario with lots of VRE has to build more capacity. As you noted, for simulating dispatch you can also specify how the availability of plants vary by season and time-of-day by using an availability shape. These shapes are obviously closely related to the CC value but they are not hard-linked together in LEAP, so take care to use consistent values for the two variables.
A word of caution: the CC for a group of geographically spread out renewable facilities (e.g. wind) may be (and likely is) higher than for an individual facility. Typically in LEAP you enter data for multiple plants of a given type.
Hope this helps!
Charlie
Henrik Von Sivers 11/22/2021
