Optimal Operation Strategy for Concentrating Solar Power toward High Penetration of Renewables

As an emerging form of renewable energy generation, concentrating solar power (CSP) plant has the inertia and dispatchability like conventional power supply, and its flexible operation mode has significant advantages in promoting the accommodation of renewables. However, insufficient flexibility might cause massive solar energy curtailment. Therefore,a mixed integer linear programming scheduling model in this paper is established to coordinate the joint optimal operation of CSP and other generation resources, i.e., wind, thermal and hydropower, aiming at minimizing the total operation costs. Case studies demonstrate that the operation cost of CSP plant can be significantly reduced, which is 4.62% lower than the natural output, and the equivalent load variance of CSP is 36.65% lower than the natural output. We also discover that the optimal operation of CSP plant can mitigate the emission of air pollutants, and meanwhile enhance the consumption level of clean energy, which is conducive to the low-carbon development of future power systems.