Planning and Modeling for High-Penetration PV
|
Awardee:
|
SunPower Corporation |
| Project Partners: | AWS Truewind, Sandia National Laboratories, KEMA, California ISO |
| Award Date: | March 11, 2010 |
|
CSI RD&D Funding:
|
$1,000,000 |
| Match Funding: | $320,000 |
|
Start Date:
|
June 2010 |
|
End Date:
|
June 2012 |
|
Project Manager:
|
Matt Galland |
|
|
510-260-8499 |
|
|
matt.galland @ sunpowercorp.com |
| Grant Manager: | Jonathan Wanjiru |
| 509-891-3192 | |
| jonathan.wanjiru @ itron.com |
Summary
Under this project, the SunPower team will identify, develop, and refine tools and resources for California electricity grid operators to accurately plan for and accommodate rapidly growing amounts of photovoltaic (PV) systems within their mix of energy producing assets. Weather and solar resource forecasting, improved PV power modeling, system model integration, and site optimization are the primary project deliverables for use by California grid operators and electricity generation community.
This project has been organized around four principal work-areas:
- Generate High-Resolution Solar Data: Develop a solar radiation and meteorological database that captures high-resolution temporal and spatial characteristics of surface weather conditions.
- Develop High-Resolution PV Power Forecasting Tools: Develop and validate a PV model with spatial and temporal resolution sufficient for simulations of significant PV grid penetrations.
- Integrate Distribution Modeling Tools: Ensure that the results of the modeled data and tools are reflected in the planning and operations models in use by California utilities.
- Define Optimal Siting: Assess the potential benefits and issues associated with high-penetration PV.
The results of this research will be of value to the California utility grid planners, providing accurate information about PV system behavior under any condition and its impact on the transmission and distribution system.
Read the SunPower Press Release
Status
| Time Period | Activity |
| June 2010 | Project started |
Project Documents/Website Links
- Project presentation PDF (236 KB)
