Dispatchable generation

Grids with high penetration of renewable energy sources generally need dispatchable generation rather than baseload generation

Dispatchable generation refers to sources of electricity that can be programmed on demand at the request of power grid operators, according to market needs. Dispatchable generators may adjust their power output according to a request.

Conventional power sources like gas, coal and some nuclear may be considered dispatchable to varying degrees, while most renewable energy sources are not. Some coal and nuclear power plants can be considered non-dispatchable, due to their slow shutdown and startup times, depending on the specific technology.

Inverter-based intermittent resources like wind and solar power are quickly adjustable only to reduce their output (curtailment) relative to their production limit at any given time, which is given by the availability of the resource (like sun or wind). For this reason, they are not considered dispatchable. However, these non-dispatchable power sources can be made effectively dispatachable by combining them with energy storage such as battery energy storage systems. Other types of renewable energy can be dispatchable without separate energy storage. These include hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal and solar thermal.

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.