Investigations on grid-integration of large-scale photovoltaic energy in Senegal

Abstract

This article presents the contribution of the renewable energies to the energy mix in the network transmission of Senegal, western Africa. The focus will be on the capacity of this network to absorb a photovoltaic generation to determine the maximal penetration rate. The approach has been applied to the electricity network of SENELEC (National Company of Electricity of Senegal), which presents good opportunities to host photovoltaic energy production. The study investigates the maximum penetration rate of photovoltaic energy, which can avoid the network instability and considers two scenarios: (i) using storage systems and (ii) determining optimal size and best locations of PV plants through the network. The obtained simulation results show that by using storage systems of a capacity of 26 MW, the current maximum penetration rate of 20% corresponding to 120 MW PV can be increased up to 24%. It is also shown that a good choice of PV plants injection points can improve the penetration rate up to 24%, when the overall PV installed power 150 MW, without storage system.