Researchers from PEIK at UK, LG&E and KU and PPL, and University of Oxford have collaborated on a study of decarbonization for existing electricity generation portfolios with large-scale renewable resources, such as wind and solar photo-voltaic (PV) facilities, which is important for a transition to a sustainable energy future. 

An ultra-fast optimization method has been proposed for economic dispatch of firm thermal generation using high granularity, one minute resolution load, wind, and solar PV data to more accurately capture the effects of variable renewable energy (VRE). Load-generation imbalance and operational cost were minimized in a multi-objective clustered economic dispatch problem with various generation portfolios, realistic generator flexibility, and increasing levels of VRE integration. 

The economic feasibility of thermal dispatch scenarios was evaluated through a proposed method of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for clustered generation portfolios. Effective renewable economics was applied to assess resource adequacy, annual carbon emissions, renewable capacity factor, over generation, and cost to build between thermal dispatch scenarios with incremental increases in VRE penetration. Solar PV and wind generation temporally complement one another in the region studied, and the combination of the two is beneficial to renewable energy integration. 

Furthermore, replacing older coal units with cleaner and agile natural gas units increases renewable hosting capacity and provides further pathways to decarbonization. Minute-based chronological simulations enable the assessment of renewable effectiveness related to weather-related variability and of complementary technologies, including energy storage for which a sizing procedure is proposed. 

The generally applicable methods were regionally exemplified for Kentucky, USA including 8 scenarios with 4 major year-long simulated case studies and 176 subcases using high performance computing (HPC) systems. More details, including Kentucky regionally specific findings and conclusions are available in a paper published in the Energies journal.

LG&E and KU and PEIK at UK researchers collaborated on the final data analysis for an annual study that involved ten Habitat for Humanity households, which each received 18 shares of solar PV panels with a capacity of 4.50 kW DC, 3.78 kW AC. The shares were provided with no cost to the participants through LG&E and KU’s Solar Share Community Solar Program. 

The solar generation was used to reduce the electricity bills for the households by an average of $27.94 per month and lower their equivalent emissions by 88.7%. The summer months provided the most monetary benefit on average, but also the widest range in value to participants. Winter had the lowest solar PV generation and lowest average monetary benefit for the participants. More details are available in a brief report (pdf).