Planning for Inertia and Resource Adequacy in a Renewable-rich Power System.

Renewable power generation is quickly replacing traditional, coal, or gas-based solutions due to its advantages in terms of cost and carbon emissions. However, with the retirement of synchronous classical generators, the power system loses inertial response capabilities because renewable energy sources do not provide it. Therefore, unless managed carefully, this replacement can endanger the reliability of the power system, including the adequacy of the generation resources and the requirement for inertial response. This paper presents a long-term dispatch-based inertia-constrained planning model that takes into account the operational constraints of the power network, generation and energy storage technologies. In addition to minimizing investment costs, the objective is to address potential reliability challenges by using energy storage systems. Moreover, the price of standby inertia is derived as the dual variable of the inertial response constraint as an indicator. Our model is applied to Australia’s low-carbon National Electricity Market as a realistic case study, and the optimal investment in each technology is determined. Furthermore, the impact of the inertial response requirement on the investment in each technology is assessed. The simulation results over the 2023-2042 horizon indicate an almost five-fold enhancement in the total inertia-supplying capability of the systems due to the investment in battery energy storage systems. This also enables additional investments in renewable generation.