KEGOC proposed to introduce liability of green energy facilities for the imbalances they create
Renewable energy sources (RES) should be held responsible for the imbalances they create in the electricity market, Nabi Aitzhanov, Chairman of the Board of KEGOC, believes.
“Currently, there are initiatives to implement renewable energy projects with a total capacity of about 16 GW - currently being considered. According to the auction schedule for 2023 approved by the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the plan for 2024–2027, an additional 6.7 GW of renewable energy facilities are to be commissioned. RFC (Company "Settlement and Financial Center for the Support of Renewable Energy Sources" also signed about 140 contracts for renewable energy for a total installed capacity of 3.3 GW. This volume is very large, and given that today our consumption in Kazakhstan is about 16 GW, you can imagine that this is a very serious load - renewable energy is now being formed. Given the instability of RES, of course, for the integration of all declared RES facilities, it is necessary first of all to prepare the power system, create the necessary conditions,” he said during the II conference on Kazakh-Chinese cooperation.
The head of the company said that according to the results of the first half of 2023, the total installed capacity of renewable energy generation facilities in Kazakhstan amounted to 2525 MW. They generated 3.3 billion kWh or almost 6% of the total electricity in Kazakhstan in six months. At the same time, the increase in electricity generation by renewable energy facilities for the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year in 2022 amounted to 40%, which Aitzhanov called "staggering".
As the first measure to stabilize the market, he called the mandatory dispatching of all renewable energy sources on a common basis.
“Given the instability of RES, of course, in order to integrate all the declared RES facilities, it is necessary first of all to prepare the power system, create the necessary conditions. Additional integration of unstable RES in conditions of capacity regulation deficit will make it impossible to receive all this excess RES electricity during hours of minimum consumption or increase in generation. Under these conditions, in order to form a balanced daily schedule, it is necessary to change or exclude the provision on the priority dispatching of RES electricity in the law on support for the use of RES in order to provide the system operator with the right to reduce the generation of electricity by RES facilities during excess hours, provided there is no other opportunity to reduce generation,” said the head of KEGOC.
The second measure Aitzhanov called equipping renewable energy facilities with energy storage systems. This is due to the fact that solar and wind power plants are characterized by generation instability during the day, as well as seasonally. For example, solar power plants produce electricity during the day, when demand for it is minimal, while in the evening, when demand is at its peak, they produce almost nothing. Traditional energy capacities in the context of the green energy priority are forced to reduce production during the day, but they must sharply increase the supply of electricity to the grid in the evening. And the higher the share of renewable energy in the country's power system, the stronger such imbalances.
Therefore, solar and wind power plants could install energy storage devices, giving it to the grid to cover consumption peaks. To do this, these energy storage devices must be connected to the KEGOC system. In addition, the head of the company believes, renewable energy sources should be responsible for the imbalances they create in the electricity market, since all possible reserves for their coverage have already been used.
“Responsibility of RES for imbalances within the balancing electricity market. In the context of the growing share of unstable renewable energy generation in the energy system, all available reserves of flexible generation have already been used to ensure the balance reliability of the UPS of Kazakhstan. At the same time, the impact of the renewable energy sector on imbalances is becoming more and more noticeable. The share of RES in imbalances at the border between Kazakhstan and Russia is already about 20% of the total deviations,” he said.
In his opinion, with the growth of RES volumes in the conditions of a shortage of flexible generation, the problem of ensuring the balance of power in the Kazakhstani power system will be aggravated. That is why, Aitzhanov believes, it is necessary now to consolidate the responsibility of renewable energy sources for the imbalances they create.
In addition, with the involvement of additional volumes of electricity from RES in the energy system, KEGOC will need to build a North-South DC transmission line.
“In the future, reverse flows of electricity will be observed within one day, depending on the generation of electricity by renewable energy facilities.
Maintaining a balance between consumption and production of electricity is possible only if there is a developed national electrical network with sufficient transmitting capacitance. It is necessary to implement projects to strengthen the southern zone and integrate the energy system of the western zone with the unified system of Kazakhstan. We have also now determined that the construction of a North-South DC transmission is necessary,” he said.
Aizhanov also proposed to ensure the high-quality formation of a generation forecast by equipping renewable energy facilities with forecasting systems and acquiring relevant services from specialized organizations.
In order to ensure a reliable power supply to the country's consumers in the context of a significant share of renewable energy sources with a sharply variable nature of electricity generation, a necessary condition for maintaining the stability of the energy system is the implementation of all planned projects for the construction of a new flexible generation in Kazakhstan.