Quantifying the Uncertainty of Energy Creation from Solar and Wind Farms in Different Locations

2. Background

Fossil fuel, hydro, nuclear, and geothermal electricity generating plants match controllable output with uncontrollable demand (Kazempour & Moghaddam, 2011). Short term demand for electricity can be estimated with a fair degree of confidence (Somasundaram & Babu, 2012). Generating plants are brought on line or taken off line in anticipation of electricity demand growing in the morning, peaking in the afternoon and early evening, and declining late in the evening. Some generating plants (nuclear and coal) operate at full capacity to satisfy base load demand while others (natural gas and hydro) are ramped up and down in response to changing variable load demand. Hydro in Canada, Norway, Brazil and a host of developing nations and nuclear in France serve both base and variable needs. This paper focuses on how simulation of electricity storage performance can be a planning tool to transform uncertain or uncontrollable supply to reliable and controllable supply.