Integration of wind and PV power in the spanish electric system using existing hydroelectric power

This paper analyses the potential reduction of electric energy generated with fossil fuels with 40 GW of PV power and 40 GW of wind power in the existing Spanish electric system and its integration by making use of existing hydroelectric power and reserves with different levels of flexibility. We use 10-minute data for 2 years and we firstly assume that hydro power remains the same as originally, observing an already high reduction in fossil fuel use in the electric mix. Then we increasingly allow more flexibility in hydro power use, i.e., we allow to use hydro reserves with different time horizons, and we analyze the incremental reduction in fossil fuel generation as we increase this flexibility. We observe that we can obtain notable gains in terms of fossil fuel reduction when increasing flexibility just slightly showing how hydro power can integrate large amounts of variable renewable energy in Spain with only a small change in the reserves profile.