Reliability evaluation of solar power in South Africa's power system

Global utilisation of renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaics (PV) in electric power systems is growing rapidly due to government incentives, and negative environmental impacts associated with conventional generators. Many consider solar PV as a promising alternative source of energy due to its apparent environmental, social and economic benefits. This together with government incentives and programmes such as the renewable energy independent power procurement program (REIPPPP) has allowed for investment in PV in South Africa (SA). Solar irradiation is a variable energy source and thus serious consideration needs to be given to the effect that PV might have on the reliability of the system. As a result traditional methods of evaluating power system reliability cannot be used when utility-scale PV is introduced to the system. Thus probabilistic methods are commonly employed to evaluate reliability. In this thesis time series data was used to simulate the yield from 27 PV plants, as defined by round 1 and round 2 of the REIPPP process, through a yield model developed for this investigation.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Bailey, Nicolas

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Stone, Adrian
• Merven, Bruno

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9135

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9135