https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2014-02217-8
Regular Article
Kolmogorov spectrum of renewable wind and solar power fluctuations
1 Institute of Physics and ForWind, Carl von Ossietzky University, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany
2 Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, 11365-9161 Tehran, Iran
3 Institute of Physics, Department of Energy and Semiconductor Research, Carl von Ossietzky University, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany
a e-mail: mohammed.r.rahimi.tabar@uni-oldenburg.de
b e-mail: peinke@uni-oldenburg.de
Received: 4 December 2013
Revised: 28 May 2014
Published online: 9 July 2014
With increasing the contribution of renewable energies in power production, the task of reducing dynamic instability in power grids must also be addressed from the generation side, because the power delivered from such sources is spatiotemporally stochastic in nature. Here we characterize the stochastic properties of the wind and solar energy sources by studying their spectrum and multifractal exponents. The computed power spectrum from high frequency time series of solar irradiance and wind power reveals a power-law behaviour with an exponent ∼ 5/3 (Kolmogorov exponent) for the frequency domain 0.001 Hz < f < 0.05 Hz, which means that the power grid is being fed by turbulent-like sources. Our results bring important evidence on the stochastic and turbulent-like behaviour of renewable power production from wind and solar energies, which can cause instability in power grids. Our statistical analysis also provides important information that must be used as a guideline for an optimal design of power grids that operate under intermittent renewable sources of power.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2014
