Expansion Planning for Renewable Integration in Power System of Regions with Very High Solar Irradiation

In this paper, we address the long-term generation and transmission expansion planning for power systems of regions with very high solar irradiation. We target the power systems that currently rely mainly on thermal generators and that aim to adopt high shares of renewable sources. We propose a stochastic programming model with expansion alternatives including transmission lines, solar power plants (photovoltaic and concentrated solar), wind farms, energy storage, and flexible combined cycle gas turbines. The model represents the longterm uncertainty to characterize the demand growth, and the short-term uncertainty to characterize daily solar, wind, and demand patterns. We use the Saudi Arabian power system to illustrate the functioning of the proposed model for several cases with different renewable integration targets. The results show that a strong dependence on solar power for high shares of renewable sources requires high generation capacity and storage to meet the night demand.