Integrating Solar Power into the Grid

Tuesday, 04 May 2010 19:09

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General Electric researchers are working with Arizona Public Service to determine the best way to integrate large amounts of solar power into the current grid, funded by a $3.3 million High Penetration Solar Deployment grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The team will identify systems and technologies that optimize grid reliability and efficiency with high concentrations of distributed solar generation.

GE, APS, Arizona’s largest electric utility, and three other partners are conducting the comprehensive first-of-its-kind study, which has been approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission, in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Kathleen O’Brien, GE’s Project Leader and an Electrical Engineer in GE’s Smart Grid Lab says APS’s solar demonstration project provides a great opportunity to understand the grid’s future needs as renewable energy resources like solar become a larger part of the nation’s overall energy portfolio.  “Much of the focus has been on new cell developments and system improvements to make solar more cost competitive, but the larger question is how to reliably integrate the higher penetrations of solar power expected,” she explains. “Through this study, we hope to gain more insight and answers.”

Among the issues O’Brien and her team are investigating are current and new technologies needed to accommodate higher penetrations of solar; the effect of fluctuating solar power production on the stability of the distribution network; and improving system stability and power quality through the advanced grid features GE’s Solar Inverter.

APS intends to integrate 1.5 megawatts of solar power on a single energy distribution area, or feeder. Residential photovoltaic (PV) rooftop installations will provide roughly 600 kilowatts while commercial business installations will provide 400 kilowatts. An additional 500 kilowatts will be incorporated from a utility-scale solar park installation.

According to the Department of Energy, solar installations in the United States are expected to exceed 6,000 MW by 2010 – three times more than the installed base two years ago. It’s anticipated the cumulative annual growth rate in solar could be as much as 41 percent through 2012. That is nearly twice as much as the healthy 22 percent growth rate seen in wind power.

The solar power being studies by GE and APS is known as distributed energy because it is generated and delivered in geographically close to its customers and is frequently decentralized from the larger electric grid network. This research format will help researchers simulate what will happen when larger amounts of solar power impact the grid from many locations.