Renewable energy is poised to play a major role in achieving China's carbon neutrality goal by 2060; however, reliability and flexibility is a big concern of a renewable-dominant power system. Various strategies of enhancing flexibility are under discussion to ensure the reliability of such a system, but no detailed quantitative analysis has been reported yet in China. We combine the advantages of a capacity expansion model, SWITCH-China, with a production simulation model, PLEXOS, and analyze flexibility options under different scenarios of a renewable-dominant power system in China. We find that a larger balancing area offers direct flexibility benefits. Regional balancing could reduce the renewable curtailment rate by 5–7%, compared with a provincial balancing strategy. National balancing could further reduce the power cost by about 16%. However, retrofitting coal power plants for flexible operation would only improve the system flexibility marginally.
}, year = {2022}, journal = {iScience}, volume = {25}, month = {02/2022}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004222000190#bib12}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.103749}, note = {An open-access version of this article published in iScience can be downloaded here.
}, language = {eng}, }