Solar
PV in the U.K. has by
far exceeded all expectations and the government has been left trying to catch
up with the market developments, said Ray Noble, an advisor to the U.K.'s
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and National Solar Centre
(NSC).
What
is even more outstanding, Noble added, is that photovoltaic farms are
outperforming, making solar
in the U.K. a worthy investment.
The
DECC expects about 8 GW of PV installations by 2016 and 12 GW of installed
capacity by 2020. This will come through various schemes such as the feed-in
tariff (FIT) -- FITS will be reviewed in 2015 -- the Renewables Obligation
Certificates (ROC) and the new Contracts for Difference (CfD) program starting
in April next year. Household, commercial rooftop projects and ground mounted
farms are all on the rise, with councils also starting to enter the market to
develop community projects.
But
is the U.K.'s electricity grid ready to cope with PV's stellar success and how
transmission and distribution grid operator practices affect their assets'
performance and generating income? A few Solar Energy UK sessions touched on the
subject.
Unfortunately,
solar PV power curtailments are necessary at the moment, said Steven Gough,
innovation and low carbon networks engineer at Western Power Distribution, a
distribution network operator (DNO) in Southwest England.
The
main objective of DNOs is to maintain the smooth operation of the electricity
grid and they do so by applying active power control. Of course, the best option
is to reinforce the grid, but this is a costly option and developers cannot
always pay for it.
Should
a developer pay for a grid upgrade, for instance buying the transformer for a
substation, this would be owned by the DNO. However, some developers tend to
invest in grid reinforcement aiming to maximise their asset maximum power
output.
Grid
reinforcement also needs to satisfy certain criteria set by Ofgem, the U.K.'s
energy regulator. Ofgem does not want grid reinforcement expenses to affect the
consumers electricity bills, said Tamar Bourne, who worked to develop the
Renewable Energy Grid Collaboration Service in collaboration with large scale
developers and the Western Power DNO.
DNOs
will agree to electrify solar PV plants without grid
reinforcement, but they should always advise their customers that their asset
power output will often need to be curtailed in order to maintain the security
of the grid, Gough pointed out. An additional solution to this problem could
be utilising energy storage, but
although the energy storage technology exists, this is not currently happening
due to a series of regulatory barriers. The DECC needs to set out the energy
storage legislation for this solution to power curtailments to be utilised,
Gough added.
An
additional concern raised recently by various market stakeholders regards the
quality of grid connections. Developers are rushing to finish their projects
before the CfD mechanism enters into force in April 2015. There are therefore
concerns that the engineering work connecting projects to the grid is happening
very hurriedly and, as a result, clumsily. Gough, however, told pv
magazine that his experience
does not confirm such concerns.
Renewable
Energy Grid Collaboration Service
Bourne
said grid limitations in Southwest England have led to the creation of the
Renewable Energy Grid Collaboration Service, which she now manages on a
day-to-day basis.
The
service brings together developers sharing information and eventually helping
them to set up consortiums, thus enabling them to apply for grid connection as a
group. That way, Bourne said, developers can share the costs of connecting to
the grid and/or reinforcing it. Establishing such groups is a complicated
process because not all developers share the same needs or project time
framework. But the signals so far have been very good and the service is ready
to expand, aiming to unlock capacity that otherwise would need to be curtailed
due to lack of grid infrastructure, she said.
Access to more about Landpower Solar Panel Mounting: Solar Mounting Systems, Solar Racking, Solar Hardware, PV Mounting, Ground mounting Systems, Solar Mounting System Manufacturers,Solar Mounting
没有评论:
发表评论