Integration of Renewable Energy Sources

1 INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
Integration of renewable energy sources
[Name]
[Course]
[Date]

2 INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
Abstract
This paper is geared towards integration of the different renewable sources of energy with
the existing source of energy. The world tends towards having their systems energy efficient, at the
same time cutting the carbon emission. In Europe for instance, many countries in the European Union
are projected to adhere to the goal of ensuring there’s 100% renewable consumption by 2050. Turkish
Republic of Northern Cypress (TRNC), is such country that has had a huge reliance on imported oil as
their means electric generation and other use. This has made the country spend a lot of money in
sustaining development and looking at the well-being of its people. Looking at different renewable,
TRNC has the capacity of achieving the goal of 100% renewable and spending less money on
development, there are just needs to have some policies put across for these to happen.
Introduction
In the past, there have been different fora, debates, and conferences regarding harnessing
and how to collect electrical energy from different sources. The founding “fathers” of electricity gave
us sources which were later discovered to non-renewable, or did not have any possibility of being
replenished, and with the ever-growing electricity demand (going together with the growing
population) these were found not to be sustainable. That is why renewable sources of energy have
been found to be the answer to this, since they can be replenished and are obtained from the natural
sources, like sun, wind, tides, geothermal etc. Efficiency in electrical energy distribution system in a
power system, is achieved by optimization of energy consumption.
But more often than not, when renewable sources are used, then optimization is achieved by
a higher percentage, adding to the fact that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are reduced in the process. The
global trend of renewable energy usage has been low, and therefore there’s a growing need to have
more exploration of the renewable sources. In the year 2018, about 181 GW was the amount of power
installed globally, 100 GW solar PV, which was 55% of the renewable power sources installed, the
others are 28% wind power, and 11% hydro power (Zervos & Adib , 2019). This is still not
sufficient going by the global consumption of electric energy according to British Petroleum (BP)
report, citing that per hours, we need 26614.8TWh (Dudley, 2019).
We can be hopeful through that the trend of investment in renewable energy globally in is on the
increase with solar being the leading, then wind as shown in figure 1. That from 2010 to 2019, there
has been over US$2.5 Trillion worth of investment in renewable energy. The 2019 report released by
the United Nations Global Climate Action Summit dabbed The Global Trend in Renewable
Investment, the investment has quadrupled the one of 2009 (which was 414 GW), to slightly over
1650 GW by the close of this decade (UN Global Climate Action Summit, 2019). This
growth has also been encouraged by the lower prices of the renewables.
Figure 1: Global investment in the renewable sources of energy
(UN Global Climate Action Summit,
2019)

3 INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
These energy sources can be integrated into the existing electricity system, or can they?
Achieving this is not an easy affair, because for integration to occur, there must be reliability of the
power system, efficiency issue must be dealt with, the cost of integration, storage of these generated
energy, among other issues. This paper deals with the current renewable sources, in Turkish Republic
of Northern Cypress (TRNC) and finding the possible ways, challenges and what needs to be done to
achieve the integration of renewable energy sources. The first point is looking into the current
renewable sources in that country, the energy storage facilities, especially when there’s intermittent of
the sources, and challenges faced, and finally possibility of integration of the system. In the
discussion, the focus shall be on solar (photo voltaic, and concentrated solar power), wind and biogas.
When the renewable energy sources are integrated with the traditional energy sources, there shall be
an improvement of reliability of the power system, and this will be enhanced further when appropriate
storage systems of energy are incorporated, this becomes important when the weather conditions
changes.
Literature Review
Integration of renewable sources in the grid
Many countries foster sustainability of energy and low emission of GHGs by embracing the
technology of renewable energy, and so they have different targets for their electric supplies. Solar
and wind are variable sources than the traditional methods of electric generation, and therefore their
production of energy is not constant, so this calls for planning the power system to accommodate
those facts. Integration of power to the grid, is a way of delivering to the grid a variable renewable
energy (VRE) in an efficient way. While integrating the VRE, there must a consideration of the cost at
the same time increasing stability of the system and reliability. There are changes in the power system
globally, which is caused by the upsurge of available low-cost variable renewable energy, the
advanced technology which involves digitalization and the opportunity in electrification brought by
high growth rate. For a power system to be referred to as flexible, it must possess a capability of
maintaining uninterrupted service while there are large swings in supply and demand. Power system
also, must be flexible for it to cope with the unexpected emergencies like plant and power outages.
System integration of VRE can be implemented when four things are considered that are different,
based on the support of the system flexibility, identification of the challenges and apply suitable
measures that supports the integration of the VRE (IEA, 2019). They are:
Generation of new renewable energy – when planning to invest in a generation of a new
VRE, targets and incentives must be aligned with the consideration of grid integration. Policy makers
or regulators of a country can make targets that drives innovations that supports clean energy. Also,
they can establish rewarding schemes that are geared towards those of generate power through
renewables, like wind or solar. These factors encourage investments in green energy technology at the
same time averts negative effects of integration.
 New transmission – when there’s a target to have VRE capacity increased, then the grid must
be expanded and modified to allow the power system to be connected to a high-quality
renewable source, which remotely work from the available transmission networks.
 The system flexibility must be increased – sources that are flexible in operation are important
when the renewable sources are connected to the gird. Flexibility encompasses market
practices and the procedures of operation. Also, the response demand and means of storage of
the electric power are among the consideration in a flexible system.
 Future planning for a higher capacity of renewable energy – when planning a power system,
demand is usually given first priority, and so this involves expanding the system’s capacity to
cater for the expected demand. This factor is tied to flexibility is that when a higher capacity
of VRE generation is employed in a power system, then the planning involved must include
flexibility in the power system (Cochran & Katz , 2015).