Application of curative flexibility in the design of NEOM’s transmission grid

Inhalt:
NEOM is planning a world’s first multi-gigawatts greenfield power system to be fed entirely from renewable energy-based power plants, predominantly solar. Therefore, planning of its transmission grid must exploit all possible technologies and degrees of freedom to minimize overall costs and environmental impacts, while maintaining high reliability standards. To minimize power infrastructures, curative flexibility is considered; and it aims to provide a new capability to quickly react, on both generation and load sides, during major contingencies that lead to overloading of sections of transmission systems. It assumes that both generation and load can quickly adjust their operating points to relieve overloads. This study investigates the potential uses of curative flexibility to reduce the overall costs and landscape impact in the planning of NEOM’s transmission grid. Additionally, the use of BESS to provide specific flexibility and function of so called grid boosters is also analysed. The results show that curative flexibility may lead to a significant reduction in infrastructures.