Supply security and the reliability of the spanish generator system in the next two decades based on the costs of fossil fuels and nuclear option

Abstract

The supply security of the primary energy sources (coal, natural gas, enriched uranium...) and the reliability of the system in terms of the oscillations of the frequency and voltage are two aspects to assess in the Generation Expansion Planning. In this article, for the first criterion, the evolution of vulnerability and degree of independence of the generator system with respect to primary energy sources has been assessed by the indexes of Shannon-Weiner and energy independence, respectively. For the second approach, the evolution of the reserve margin by means the coverage index and the progression of the inertia and regulation capacity by means of its percentage regarding the total installed capacity. These four indexes have been applied on the obtained results of a stochastic lineal model developed with the software GAMS. In this model the nuclear technology has been considered as generation option in several scenarios of costs of the fossil fuels, coal and natural gas. Also, two of clean coal technologies with greater possibility of putting into service have been taken into account. The final conclusion would be that each technology carries out several functions in the generator system but not all them. That is, a generator system should have the greatest possible number of types of generation to be reliable and have supply security.