Abstract

It is imperative for power systems all over the world to enable the integration of a considerable amount of renewable energy sources to meet international climate goals. This implies a paradigm shift in grid operation and network expansion on two fronts:

• At the lower end ‐ microgrids, local energy communities, distributed generation, local battery energy storage systems, enabling the subsidiarity principle balancing the system locally as much as techno‐economically feasible, through local markets and other smart grid solutions. Investments and developments where the focus lies on small‐scale local solutions are in this paper referred to as the micro‐perspective.
• At the higher end ‐ enlarging the integrated power system through bulk long‐distance HVAC and HVDC interconnections, utility‐scale RES generation plants and battery energy storage systems, multi‐national integration of electricity markets. Investments and developments where the focus lies on the large‐scale system or intra‐system wide solutions are in this paper referred to as the MEGA‐perspective.

These two trends, both aiming at enabling very high penetration of RES, are largely influencing the decisions taken in the evolution process of the power grids. The objective of this paper is to present a critical assessment of these trends.

E. HILLBERG (Juan Carlos Gonzalez is co-author)

Presented at CIGRE SESSION TECHNICAL PROGRAMME 2020