Investigating the Complementarity Characteristics of Wind and Solar Power for Load Matching Based on the Typical Load Demand in China

This study explores the potential of renewable power to meet the load demand in China. The complementarity for load matching (LM-complementarity) is defined firstly. Kendall's correlation is employed to quantify the LM-complementarity. Then the complementarity characteristics on the hourly and daily time scales are analyzed. Results reveal that increasing the distance between interconnected power plants has weak improvements on the LM-complementarity in most cases. The LM-complementarity between wind and solar power is superior to that between wind or solar power generated in different regions. The hourly load demand can be effectively met by the LM-complementarity between wind and solar power. The optimal LM-complementarity scenario effectively eliminates the anti-peak regulation feature of wind power and reduces the phase differences between load demand and renewable power generation during a day. However, it is hard to balance renewable power generation and load demand on the daily time scale by the LM-complementarity. Compared with the complementarity for power smoothing defined in previous studies, the instability and peak-to-valley differences of the net-load demand can be effectively reduced by LM-complementarity. Thus the needs for flexibility are effectively reduced when integrating large-scale renewable power into the power system.