High Penetrations of Renewable Energy for Island Grids - Save this page

Thanks to policy incentives in a growing number of jurisdictions, wind and photovoltaics have become the two fastest growing energy sources in the world. They are now dominated by global corporations with the resources to support their installations with the reliability demanded by the electric utility industry. To date, most of this growth has been targeted at continent-scale electric grids, where they represent a tiny fraction of the installed capacity. At current penetration levels, continent-scale electric systems can easily absorb the variable output of the wind and solar resource. Output variability becomes a much more important issue at the higher penetration rates that are easily reached on smaller grids. However, the overriding economic and security benefits of displacing petroleum can more than offset the additional integration costs.