On the Complementary Variability of Wind and Solar Power

摘要

The variability of and correlations between large-scale, distributed wind and PV generation across a northern US state is evaluated and contrasted. We analyze three years of hourly-interval, time-synchronous data from the State's wind fleet and distributed PV production simulated with SolarAnywhereTM. Despite a significantly higher capacity factor (wind: 37% vs. solar: 16%), distributed wind exhibits more variability than solar at timescales longer than a day. Though this longer-timescale variability is a key cost driver at high penetrations on the grid, it can be attenuated by blending the two resources owing to their strong seasonal anticorrelation.