Renewable energy curtailment is a critical issue in China, impeding the country’s transition to clean energy and its ability to meet its climate goals. This paper analyzes the impacts of more flexible coal-fired power generation and improved power dispatch towards reducing wind power curtailment. A unit commitment model for power dispatch is used to conduct the analysis, with different scenarios demonstrating the relative impacts of more flexible coal-fired generation and improved power dispatch. Overall, while we find both options are effective in reducing wind power curtailment, we find that improved power dispatch is more effective: (1) the effect of ramping down coal-fired generators to reduce wind power curtailment lessens as the minimum output of coal-fired generation is decreased; and (2) as a result, at higher wind capacity levels, wind curtailment is much more significantly reduced with improved power dispatch than with decreased minimum output of coal-fired generation.
Key policy insights
China should emphasize both coal power flexibility and dispatch in its policies to minimize renewable power curtailment and promote clean energy transition.
China should accelerate the process of implementing spot market and marginal cost-based economic dispatch, while making incremental improvements to the existing equal share dispatch in places not ready for spot market.
A key step in improving of dispatch is incorporating renewable power forecasts into the unit commitment process and updating the daily unit commitment based on the latest forecast result.
China should expand the coal power flexibility retrofit programme and promote the further development of the ancillary service market to encourage more flexibility from coal-fired generation.
The semi-Lagrangian advection scheme is implemented on a new quasi-uniform overset (Yin-Yang) grid on the sphere. The Yin-Yang grid is a newly developed grid system in spherical geometry with two perpendicularly-oriented latitude-longitude grid components (called Yin and Yang respectively) that overlapp each other, and this effectively avoids the coordinate singularity and the grid convergence near the poles. In this overset grid, the way of transferring data between the Yin and Yang components is the key to maintaining the accuracy and robustness in numerical solutions. A numerical interpolation for boundary data exchange, which maintains the accuracy of the original advection scheme and is computationally efficient, is given in this paper. A standard test of the solid-body advection proposed by Williamson is carried out on the Yin-Yang grid. Numerical results show that the quasi-uniform Yin-Yang grid can get around the problems near the poles, and the numerical accuracy in the original semi-Lagrangian scheme is effectively maintained in the Yin-Yang grid. 相似文献
Sequence stratigraphy for clastic continental margins predicts the development of sand-rich turbidite deposits during specific times in relation to base-level cycles. It is now widely understood that deltas can extend to the shelf-edge forced by high sediment flux and/or base level, providing a direct connection to transfer sediment and sand to the slope and basin floor even during high base level periods. Herein, we build a stratigraphic forward model for the last 120 kyr of the fluvio-deltaic to deep-water Brazos system (USA) where sediment partitioning along an Icehouse continental margin can be evaluated. The reduced-complexity stratigraphic forward model employs geologically constrained input parameters and mass balance. The modelled architecture is consistent with the location of depositional units previously mapped in the shelf. Sand bypasses the shelf and upper slope between 35 to 15 kyr before present and only about 20%–30% of all the sediment and sand supplied to the system is transferred to deep water. Several scenarios based on the initial Brazos model investigate the relationships between base level and deep-water sand ratio (DWSR). DWSR is defined as the relative amount of sand transferred to the deep-water portions of the system subdivided by the total sand input to the model. Linear correlations between DWSR and base level change rates or base level are very poor. Short-term variability due to local processes (for example avulsions) is superimposed to the long-term trends and mask the base level signal. DWSR for an entire base-level cycle is mainly controlled by the proportion of time the delta stays docked at the shelf-edge. Stratigraphic forward models are useful to complement field observations and quantify how different processes control stratigraphy, which is important for making predictions in areas with limited information. 相似文献