Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV
Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems generate electricity with no marginal costs or emissions. As a result, PV output is almost always prioritized over other fuel sources and delivered to the electric grid. However, PV curtailment is increasing as PV composes greater shares of grid capacity. In this pape...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Elsevier
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7470769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32908323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2020.08.075 |
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author | O'Shaughnessy, Eric Cruce, Jesse R. Xu, Kaifeng |
author_facet | O'Shaughnessy, Eric Cruce, Jesse R. Xu, Kaifeng |
author_sort | O'Shaughnessy, Eric |
collection | PubMed |
description | Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems generate electricity with no marginal costs or emissions. As a result, PV output is almost always prioritized over other fuel sources and delivered to the electric grid. However, PV curtailment is increasing as PV composes greater shares of grid capacity. In this paper, we present a novel synthesis of curtailment in four key countries: Chile, China, Germany, and the United States. We find that about 6.5 million MWh of PV output was curtailed in these countries in 2018. We find that: Policy and grid planning practices influence where, when, and how much PV is curtailed; Some PV curtailment is attributable to limited transmission capacity connecting remote solar resources to load centers; PV curtailment peaks in the spring and fall, when PV output is relatively high but electricity demand is relatively low. We discuss available measures to reduce PV curtailment as well as increasing PV curtailment in the contexts of evolving grids and energy technologies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7470769 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74707692020-09-04 Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV O'Shaughnessy, Eric Cruce, Jesse R. Xu, Kaifeng Sol Energy Article Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems generate electricity with no marginal costs or emissions. As a result, PV output is almost always prioritized over other fuel sources and delivered to the electric grid. However, PV curtailment is increasing as PV composes greater shares of grid capacity. In this paper, we present a novel synthesis of curtailment in four key countries: Chile, China, Germany, and the United States. We find that about 6.5 million MWh of PV output was curtailed in these countries in 2018. We find that: Policy and grid planning practices influence where, when, and how much PV is curtailed; Some PV curtailment is attributable to limited transmission capacity connecting remote solar resources to load centers; PV curtailment peaks in the spring and fall, when PV output is relatively high but electricity demand is relatively low. We discuss available measures to reduce PV curtailment as well as increasing PV curtailment in the contexts of evolving grids and energy technologies. Elsevier 2020-09-15 2020-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7470769/ /pubmed/32908323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2020.08.075 Text en Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article O'Shaughnessy, Eric Cruce, Jesse R. Xu, Kaifeng Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV |
title | Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV |
title_full | Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV |
title_fullStr | Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV |
title_full_unstemmed | Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV |
title_short | Too much of a good thing? Global trends in the curtailment of solar PV |
title_sort | too much of a good thing? global trends in the curtailment of solar pv |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7470769/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32908323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2020.08.075 |
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