Spatial and temporal variability analysis of power from solar photovoltaic generators at multiple locations for power system planning

In recent years, solar photovoltaic generators (SPVGs) have become an essential source of power generation. Consequently, the SPVGs are planned to be spatially distributed across multiple locations in the power system. Notably, the power from the spatially distributed SPVGs (SDSPVGs) at multiple locations exhibits spatial and temporal variability (STV) due to the variability in the solar resource. Hence, the STV power from the SDSPVGs makes power system planning complex. Existing methods focused on analyzing the variability in the power from SPVGs at a single or two locations. Therefore, this paper proposes a three-stage procedure and four STV metrics to analyze the STV of power from SDSPVGs in the presence of other generators. Stages 1 and 2 explicitly describe the spatial distribution process and evaluation of the power from SDSPVGs. Furthermore, four STV metrics have been formulated in stage 3 to analyze the STV of power from SDSPVGs in terms of local and regional spatial variances and local and coherent temporal variances. To show the usefulness of the proposed procedure and metrics, the STV of power is analyzed for several cases of SDSPVGs in the IEEE 30 bus test system, the Indian utility 62 bus system, and locations with different climatic zones across India with real-time power data as a case study. The results indicate that the STV of power varies with the spatial distribution of SPVGs from single to multiple locations and will be minimal if the SPVG capacity is spatially distributed at multiple locations with appropriate sizes.