Renewable integration: transmission and energy storage solutions
Speaker: Josh Taylor, University of California Berkeley
Series: Other Events
Location:
J223 Equad
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 4:00 p.m.
- 5:00 p.m.
Abstract:
There is presently a great social and environmental interest in shifting our energy reliance away from fossil fuels toward renewable sources such as wind and solar. The variability and remoteness of such sources make their integration into existing power systems a complex proposition. Transmission expansion and energy storage are two clear technical solutions, but both come at high economic costs. Indeed, the phrase 'one million dollars per mile' is a legitimate characterization of the price of new transmission lines, and, with the exception of some pumped hydro, the cheapest energy storage installation is at least $2500 per kilowatt capacity. Since each technology will be relied upon to some extent, it is natural to ask how to invest efficiently.
In this talk, we develop techniques by which to optimize the implementation and usage of storage and transmission. We introduce new, mixed-integer linear, second-order cone, and semidefinite AC transmission system planning models, and find in numerical examples that adequate solutions can be quickly found at 2/3 the cost of those produced by other approaches. We then summarize recent work on energy storage. First, we cast the associated energy scheduling problem in terms of inventory control, and discuss the resulting optimal affine policies. We then consider a market scenario in which multiple firms compete through capacity and then price, and discuss potential policy implications.
Biography:
Josh Taylor received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011, and is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of California, Berkeley. His interests include integration of renewable energy, power quality and reliability, system planning, and economics.
