Efficacy of options to address balancing challenges: integrated gas and electricity perspectives

Abstract

Integration of a large capacity of wind generation in the Great Britain (GB) electricity network is expected to pose a number of operational challenges. The variable nature of wind generation necessitates introduction of technologies that can provid e flexibility to generation portfolios and therefore compensate for intermittency of wind generation. In this paper, the efficacy of three options to address electricity balancing challenges was evaluated: flexible gas - fired plants, electricity storage and Power - to - Gas system. The combined gas and electricity network model (CGEN) was enhanced and th rough adopting a rolling optimis ation approach the model aims at minimi s ing the operational cost of an integrated gas and electricity networks that represents a GB system in 2030. The potential impacts of employing each of the flexibility options on the operation of the integrate d electricity and gas networks we re investigated . The analysis showed that amongst all the flexibility options, the deployment of grid - sc ale electricity storage will achieve the highest reduction in the operational cost of the integrated system ( £12 million reduction in a typical winter week, and £3 million reduction in a typical summer week) . The results of this study provide insights on the system - wide benefits offered by each of the flexibility options and role of the gas network in the energy system with large capacity of wind generation.