Impact of Generator Failures on Photovoltaic Energy Curtailment in Power Systems with Large-scale Integration of Photovoltaic Generation

The installed capacity of photovoltaic (PV) generation in Japan has been rapidly increasing since the establishment of the feed-in tariff policy in 2012. We developed a supply-demand operation method based on PV generation forecasting in power systems. This method considers large-scale integration of PV generation. PV power outputs must be occasionally curtailed to maintain a supply-demand balance in future power systems. The amount and frequency of the curtailment highly depend on the operation of thermal power generators, which take an important role in the supply-demand operation. In this study, we evaluated the impact of generator failures on the PV energy curtailment for the supply-demand operation. We probabilistically obtained the generator failures, and considered PV generation forecasting and other parameters to run simulations based on Monte Carlo method. The results revealed that the generator failures can either increase or decrease the PV energy curtailment depending on whether the installed PV capacity in the power system is low or high.