Page 316 - A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems

P. 316

Integration of PV Generated

Electricity into National Grids

Graham Stein*, Trevor M. Letcher** ,†
*NATIONAL GRID, WARWICK, UNITED KINGDOM; **UNIVERSITY
†
OF KWAZULU-NATAL, DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA; LAUREL HOUSE, FOSSEWAY,
STRATTON ON THE FOSSE, UNITED KINGDOM
trevor@letcher.eclipse.co.uk, graham.stein@nationalgrid.co.uk

15.1 Introduction: Rapid Growth of the Solar
PV Industry

Solar cells have been used to produce electricity since the 1950s, but it is only recently,
in the 2000s, that electricity-supplying companies have used solar energy as a source for
producing grid-electricity. In this short time the photovoltaic industry has been a success
story both from the decarbonisation of the electricity generating industry point of view
and from the industry growth itself.
PV technology advances and deployment over past 20 years have been amazing
as discussed in Chapter 1 and Chapter 28. The raison d’etre is of course the looming
specter of global warming and climate change [1]. Growth in the United Kingdom was
relatively slow as can be expected for a country not imbued with an overabundance of
sunshine, after all the United Kingdom lies north of 52˚ N. In spite of that the United
Kingdom now has the fourth largest solar PV capacity in Europe with 11% of the Eu-
rope’s total (Chapter 28).
This chapter refers to the integration of solar PV into national power supply net-
works with particular relevance to the United Kingdom. Much of the information has
been obtained from the National Grid Future Energy Scenarios [2], the National Grid
Summer Outlook report [3], the Sheffield PV Monitoring Project [4], The National Grid
control room twitter feed [5], and the National Grid System Operability Framework
document [6]. Many of the statements in this chapter are taken directly from these
documents.
The issues facing operators in integrating wind energy into grid networks have a close
affinity to the problems facing PV. A detailed report into wind energy integration by Jurgen
Weiss and T Bruce Tsuchida can be found in a related book [7].

311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321