Abstract: Reliability will remain a key requirement for decarbonized power sectors, but also a concern with the high penetraon of variable renewable energy (VRE). The tradional approach for reliability is by producing enough energy and adapng rapidly to changes in load with the dispatch of fossil fuel power plants, especially natural gas power plants. However, this will have to evolve as decarbonizaon progresses. Can various flexibility resources such as transmission, storage and demand response provide the same reliability benefits? This paper uses a detailed, capacity expansion and hourly operaon model to invesgate the possibility and the cost of reaching different levels of planning reserved margins (PRM), in the mul-regional context of the North American Northeast. We find that while it is possible to enrely avoid natural gas power plants to obtain high PRM, it would come at a very high cost and would require high levels of transmission, storage and demand response. We also detail why these three flexibility resources are complementary. The implicaons for energy policies are significant: in order for power system’s cost to remain reasonable, reliability must count on some carbon-neutral natural gas, along with interes with neighboring systems, storage and high levels of demand response.
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Tournier, O., Pineau, P.-O., 2024. Maintaining reliability in a 100% decarbonized power sector: the complementary role of flexible resources, January 2024.
