Advanced grid development

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Wind energy and solar-PV energy are the world fastest-growing energy resources. This trend indicates that the level of penetration of the wind and solar-PV power in the electric power grid will significantly grow within the next 2-3 decades. From 1996 to 2014, the level of wind power penetration in the power utility grid has almost exponentially increased from 6100-MW to 293,500-MW. The price of PV-cells has dramatically dropped during the last decade and resulted in significant technical and economical incentives for further utilization of solar-PV power and resulted in its high depth of penetration in the utility grid. The estimated global PV-power capacity for 2017 is 322,000-MW. The Canadian solar electricity capacity has increased from about 50-MW in 2009 to (estimated) 2000-MW in 2014. Furthermore, to the surprise of the industry observers, large-size solar-PV power plants, e.g., 290-MW and 550-MW plants, also have become technically and economically viable and successfully integrated in the utility grid. High-depth of penetration of solar and wind power in the utility power grid imposes challenging technical issues due to the intermittency of such resources and the characteristics of power electronic converters that interface them to the grid. In view of the fact that high-depth of penetration of the renewable resources occur gradually, it is imperative for Hydro One to develop comprehensive understanding and a systematic categorization of the issues and their degrees of severity, develop strategies to prevent/counteract/mitigate the issues in the most economical way, and pro-actively plan for legacy asset management in coordination with the increase in the depth of penetration of renewable resources. The main objective of this R&D program is to empower Hydro One to deal with these requirements.