California Duck Curve Getting Deeper With Solar Growth
Data source:Grid operators constantly balance electricity generation with electricity demand in a region. Demand is lowest overnight, when most consumers are sleeping and when many businesses are closed. Demand begins to ramp up in the morning as people wake up and businesses start opening. Demand stays elevated throughout the day, rises slightly in the evening as people come home from work and residential electricity consumption increases, and then drops off again in the late evening.
Unlike conventional power plants , solar and wind resources can’t be fully dispatched at will to help meet demand, and utilities may have tothem to protect grid operations. Solar power is only generated during daylight hours, peaking at midday when the sun is strongest and dropping off at sunset. As more solar capacity comes online, conventional power plants are used less often during the middle of the day, and the duck curve deepens.
The duck curve presents two challenges related to increasing solar energy adoption. The first challenge is grid stress. The extreme swing in demand for electricity from conventional power plants from midday to late evenings, when energy demand is still high but solar generation has dropped off, means that conventional power plants must quickly ramp up electricity production to meet consumer demand.
The other challenge is economic. The dynamics of the duck curve can challenge the traditional economics of dispatchable power plants because the factors contributing to the curve reduce the amount of time a conventional power plant operates, which results in reduced energy revenues. If the reduced revenues make the plants uneconomical to maintain, the plants may retire without a dispatchable replacement.
The duck curve, however, has created opportunities for energy storage. The large-scale deployment of energy storage systems, such as batteries, allow some solar energy generated during the day to be stored and saved for later, after the sun sets. Storing some midday solar generation flattens the duck’s curve, and dispatching the stored solar generation in the evening shortens the duck’s neck. Battery storage is swiftly being constructed in California; it’s grown from 0.2 gigawatts in 2018 to 4.
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