A recent study from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) used high-performance computing capabilities and other tools to examine how the power grid of the eastern United States could operationally accommodate 30 percent annual penetration of wind and solar.
Whereas previous studies have investigated operations in one-hour intervals, the NREL study released Aug. 31 analyzed a year of operations at five-minute intervals, the same real-time interval used by grid operators for scheduling resources.
“By modeling the power system in depth and detail, NREL has helped reset the conversation about how far we can go operationally with wind and solar in one of the largest power systems in the world,” said Charlton Clark, a DOE program manager for the study. Read More
