Increasing Grid System Value with Hybrid Power Plants (Text Version)
This is the text version for the "Increasing Grid System Value with Hybrid Power Plants" video.
Title slide: Increasing Grid System Value with Hybrid Power Plants
As the share of renewable energy in the electric grid system continues to increase, hybrid power plants create opportunities to provide significant value by producing more energy in a predictable and controllable fashion.
Hybrid plants combine two or more renewable energy-generation technologies and operate like traditional power plants.
Consider a plausible hybrid plant scenario.
A plant operator chooses to add solar panels to a wind power plant.
These solar panels generate additional power during the day, while the wind turbines continue to capture wind energy at night.
In this way, the energy profiles of wind and solar complement each other, and when combined with next generation energy storage technologies, hybrid systems minimize the risks of renewable energy variability and maximize the utility of interconnected resources.
Energy storage technology on the grid is a game changer.
It allows plants to store more energy when renewable resource availability is high and electricity demand is low, thereby stabilizing grid voltage and frequency and improving grid resiliency.
By coupling existing and emerging energy technologies together, plant operators increase the density of available electric generation, boosting power output and plant reliability while simultaneously reducing costs by using existing infrastructure.
There are several U.S. regions where hybrid wind and solar plants could be developed.
Areas in California, Texas, and states near the center of the country offer the greatest resource potential, with an abundance of solar energy during the day and high wind speeds at night.
Developing these areas could significantly increase the amount of installed renewable capacity overnight, ramping up the speed of renewable energy distribution across the United States.
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