Recently, the famous IEEE Spectrum magazine, issue 2 of 2019, reported the EEA's academic achievements Economic Justification of Concerned Solar Power in High Renewable Energy Penated Power Systems in its special topic on solar thermal electric power generation, China. The paper was published in Applied Energy in July 2018. The paper was previously reported by EurekAlert, a global science and technology news service platform sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and AAAS, under the theme of "solar thermal power generation Helps China Reduce the Cost of Coping with Climate Change" in July 2018. In addition, the paper was also reported by SolarPACES and Chemical Energy Systems of IEA and New EnergyUpdate, a renewable energy technology news platform. The first and second authors of the paper are EEA postdoctoral researcher Du Ershun and associate professor Ning Zhang, and Corresponding author is EEA Kang Chongqing professor. The co-authors include researcher Bri-Mathias Hodge and researcher Benjamin Kroposki of National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Professor Xia Qing of EEA.

Based on the "Power Planning Decision Support System (GOPT)" developed by EEA team, and according to the installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic during the "The thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period of Qinghai and Gansu power grids, the paper analyzes the energy benefits and flexibility benefits of reducing wind and light abandonment after Qinghai and Gansu power grids are connected to solar thermal electric power generation. The study found that when high proportion of wind power and photovoltaic power are connected to Qinghai power grid and Gansu power grid, replacing part of the planned photovoltaic or wind power capacity with solar thermal electric power generation can bring more economic benefits. The reason is that the photothermal unit can provide additional scheduling flexibility by means of heat storage, and the marginal benefit of reducing wind and light abandonment is very high. Even though the investment cost of the optical thermal power station is significantly higher than that of wind power and photovoltaic (about 5 times that of wind power and 3 times that of photovoltaic), under the background of grid connection of high proportion of renewable energy, solar thermal electric power generation still has good technical and economic performance (even without considering subsidies, its overall social benefits are still significantly greater than the investment cost). The study further obtains the best installed capacity of solar thermal electric power generation units by simulating different replacement ratios, providing theoretical basis for the future planning of solar thermal electric power generation in China.

The "Power Planning Decision Support System (GOPT)" developed by the team has been successfully applied to the research of power planning and operation decision in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Gansu and other regions in China. The system comprehensively considers the operation modes of various types of power sources such as thermal power, gas turbine, hydropower, extraction and storage, wind power, etc. It takes the day-ahead unit combination and economic dispatch as the core, and evaluates the safety, reliability, economy, adaptability and environmental protection of various power source plans in a multi-dimensional and refined way. On this basis, the system proposes and implements a large-scale new energy operation simulation method, which provides scientific and powerful support for the planning and operation decision of China's power system connected with large-scale renewable energy under the new situation.

IEEESpectrum is the flagship science and technology magazine of IEEE. It is mainly used to report the latest research progress in the fields of electricity, electronics and computers in academia and industry, and to look forward to and discuss the future development trend of technology. It is published simultaneously in O2O every month. IEEE Spectrum also reported on the team's research on pumped storage power generation planning in September 2016 and March 2015.

AAAS is a consortium of the world's largest scientific and engineering associations, and is also the largest non-profit international scientific and technological organization. It has 21 specialized branches, covering such natural and social sciences as mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography and biology. AAAS is also the organizer of the world famous comprehensive Science magazine Science.

SolarPACES is a news platform sponsored by the International Energy Agency, IEA). It is mainly used to report the latest academic progress and industrial developments in the field of solar energy and chemical energy worldwide. IEA is a subsidiary body of the Organization for Global Economic Cooperation and Development, which aims to coordinate energy policies worldwide.

NewEnergy Update is an authoritative news platform in follow-up report for international conferences and latest industry developments in the field of renewable energy, founded by FCIB-Energy Energy Consulting.

Links to original articles

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918305099

IEEE Spectrum original link

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/solar/china-stumbles-on-path-to-solar-thermal-supremacy

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-battles-coal-for-access-to-chinas-grid

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/policy/a-pumped-hydro-energystorage-renaissance

EurekAlert original link

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-07/s-ste071818.php

SolarPACES original link

https://www.solarpaces.org/study-csp-will-help-china-cut-costs-of-climate-action/

NewEnergyUpdate original link

http://analysis.newenergyupdate.com/csp-today/china-market-study-confirms-csp-value-high-wind-solar-markets-0

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