"The Cost of Solar Power Variability"
Colleen Horin, Gilbert E. Cohen, and Jay Apt
We compare the power spectra of a year of electricity generation data from the
Nevada Solar One solar thermal plant, a Tucson Electric Power solar PV array,
and a Texas wind farm. The analysis shows that solar photovoltaic electricity
generation is one hundred times more variable at frequencies on the order of
10-3 Hz than solar thermal electricity generation, and the variability of wind
generation lies between solar PV and solar thermal. We calculate the cost of
variability of the two solar power sources by adding the costs of ancillary
services and the energy required to compensate for its variability and
intermittency. We compare this result with a previous estimate of the cost of
wind variability and present a method for calculating the cost of variability
taking into account imperfect forecasts.
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