Avoiding curtailment made sense when solar generation was extremely expensive: don’t build solar beyond what you can store. However, that means solar must always wait for storage costs to decline and capacity grow. But with solar prices plummeting it can make economic sense to overbuild it, say Richard Perez, University at Albany, and Karl Rabago, Pace University. Oversized solar will deliver more energy in low light and reduce the need for expensive storage. It can be so cheap the daytime curtailment won’t matter, say the authors. They have modelled solar “oversizing”, curtailment and storage costs and concluded that even with curtailment at 20%-40% electricity prices can reach grid parity, and be lower than building up expensive storage (and that includes factoring in projected storage cost declines).
Energy Post 11th June 2019 read more »