A stochastic framework to evaluate the impact of agricultural load flexibility on the sizing of renewable energy systems
Date
2020Source Title
Renewable Energy
Print ISSN
0960-1481
Publisher
Elsevier
Volume
152
Pages
1067 - 1078
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
Pumping of water for agriculture can be a flexible component of electric demand. In this study, a framework that involves scenario based stochastic programming models is developed to examine the effect of load shifting on the renewable energy system sizing for agricultural load. With the help of this framework, alternative load shifting policies are evaluated to observe how the intrinsic flexibility of agricultural load reduces the amount of investments while designing a renewable system. Using real data from India’s Gujarat region, solar and wind cases are evaluated separately to understand the coherency between these sources and the agricultural demand. The value of using a dispatchable source to help with the intermittency of the renewable sources in the systems is discussed. It is also shown that energy storage can be a convenient control mechanism for the integration of renewables; however, is an expensive substitute for demand response programs for agricultural load. Benchmarks for the incentive amounts that can be provided for alternative load shifting policies are presented.
Keywords
Agricultural energy demandDemand response
Load shifting
Incentive
Solar energy
Wind energy