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National Grid Integration and the Sub-national Studies

Under Greening the Grid (GTG), the Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories support integration of renewable energy (RE) into the Indian power system through analytical studies and modeling. The U.S. team, in partnership with Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (POSOCO) and six RE-rich Indian states have completed the national grid integration study and the sub-national studies focusing on Western and Southern regions. These studies analyze strategies to integrate high level of RE into the Indian grid and provide the foundation for changes to system operations and infrastructure, such as:

• Improved Forecasting
• Balancing Area Cooperation
• Increased Power System Flexibility
• Newer RE Trading Models

Under the partnership, a multi-institutional team, representing India’s POSOCO, the U.S. DOE’s NREL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), produced the ‘India Renewable Integration Study’ report using advanced weather and power system modeling. The Ministry of Power and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) led the initiative.

The study confirms the technical and economic viability of integrating 175 gigawatts (GW) of RE into India’s power grid by 2022, and identifies future course of actions.. Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy, and Mines, Government of India, released the first part of the national study on ‘Pathways to Integrate 175 Gigawatts of Renewable Energy into India’s Electric Grid’ in New Delhi on June 29, 2017. The two-volume report, ‘Greening the Grid: Pathways To Integrate 175 Gigawatts of Renewable Energy into India’s Electric Grid’ Vol. I—National Study and Vol. II—Regional Study, resolves many queries on how India’s electricity grid can manage the variability and uncertainty of India’s 2022 RE target of 175 GW of installed capacity, including 100 GW of solar and 60 GW of wind, up from 9 GW of solar and 29 GW of wind installed in early 2017.

The ‘Regional Study’ captures the effects of intrastate transmission to analyze RE integration specific to the Southern and Western regions and the six high-RE states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu. The regional study provides a more appropriate platform for detailed state-level planning. It captures more accurately the complex relationship among scheduling and operations, transmission, RE site selection, and generator flexibility with regard to RE integration.

The second volume of the report, including state chapters, was released across the RE-rich states including Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. It takes a more in-depth look at system operations in the Western and Southern regions.

India’s Power System Transition – Insights on Gate Closure

Greening the Grid (GTG), a partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Government of India Ministry of Power, released a new analysis on gate closure in the Indian context—a critical feature of electricity market design under consideration by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to facilitate large-scale renewable integration in India. In defining gate closure, the time at which market participants must submit their final bids and offers for electricity and schedules become firm, CERC will be balancing multiple considerations—jurisdictional control, market efficiency and design, thermal and system operational requirements, communication and infrastructure standards, and RE forecasting accuracy, among others. This report analyzes global experiences with gate closure, and then reviews the unique benefits, challenges, and other considerations that will impact the implementation of gate closure in the Indian electricity market. The analysis can inform decision-making in both the Indian power system, and more broadly across South Asia as electricity markets become more integrated. The report was co-authored by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Power System Operation Corporation Limited (POSOCO).

Author’s Jessica Katz, K. V. N. Pawan Kumar, S. C. Saxena, S. K. Soonee, S. R. Narasimhan, K. V. S. Baba, and Jaquelin Cochran. 2019. Opening Markets, Designing Windows, and Closing Gates: India’s Power System Transition – Insights on Gate Closure. NREL/TP-6A20-72665.

Click on the image below download the report.

Supporting the GTG-RISE Initiative Pilots

This partnership is also supporting the GTG-RISE Initiative for its pilots through studies and assessments in India that analyze strategies to integrate high level of RE into the Indian grid. The implementing partner, U.S. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), will be evaluating the impact of ultra-mega solar parks, and conducting analysis to support pilots as appropriate under the GTG-RISE Initiative. NREL is also providing technical support to the following three pilot projects planned under the GTG-RISE Initiative:

• Dynamic Compensation for Large Solar Park Integration;
• Battery Energy Storage System (BESS); and
• Automatic Generation Control (AGC)

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