Multi-Year PV Generation Planning Incorporating Power Electronics Impacts in Sizing Decisions

Power electronics reliability can have a significant impact on the system reliability and cost, especially when a high installation rate of the renewable energy-based units is present in the system. Therefore, the power electronics reliability impact on the optimum system design needs to be included in the generation planning. However, current long-term planning methods do not include this impact in the decision making process. In this paper, a generation planning procedure which incorporates power electronics reliability in the sizing of generation units and power electronics over long-term planning horizon is presented. The case study results show that the size and installation time of the generation units and power electronics are optimized to reduce power electronics reliability-induced costs.