Wind and Solar Curtailment

Preprint
Debra Lew,1 Lori Bird,1 Michael Milligan,1 Bethany Speer,1
Xi Wang,1 Enrico Maria Carlini,2 Ana Estanqueiro,3 Damian Flynn,4
Emilio Gomez-Lazaro,5 Nickie Menemenlis,6 Antje Orths,7
Ivan Pineda,8 J. Charles Smith,9 Lennart Soder,10 Poul Sorensen,11
Argyrios Altiparmakis,11 and Yasuda Yoh12
1

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Terna Rete Italia
3
LNEG
4
University College Dublin
5
University of Castilla-La Mancha
6
Hydro Quebec
7
Energinet.dk
8
European Wind Energy Association
9
UVIG
10
KTH
11
Technical University of Denmark
12
Kansai University
2

To be presented at the International Workshop on Large-Scale

Integration of Wind Power Into Power Systems as Well as on
Transmission Networks for Offshore Wind Power Plants
London, England
October 22 24, 2013
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Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308

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Wind and Solar Curtailment

Debra Lew, Lori Bird, Michael Milligan,
Bethany Speer, Xi Wang

Nickie Menemenlis
Hydro Quebec, Quebec, Canada

National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Colorado, USA

Antje Orths

Enrico Maria Carlini

Energinet.dk, Fredericia, Denmark

Terna Rete Italia, Rome, Italy

J. Charles Smith

Ana Estanqueiro

UVIG, North Carolina, USA

LNEG, Lisbon, Portugal

Lennart Soder

Damian Flynn

KTH, Stockholm, Sweden

University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Poul Sorensen, Argyrios Altiparmakis

Emilio Gomez-Lazaro

Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Yasuda Yoh

Hannele Holttinen

Kansai University, Osaka, Japan

VTT, Finland

accounting purposes. The main reasons for wind and solar

curtailment are listed below.

AbstractHigh penetrations of wind and solar generation on power

systems are resulting in increasing curtailment. Wind and solar
integration studies predict increased curtailment as penetration
levels grow. This paper examines experiences with curtailment on
bulk power systems internationally. It discusses how much
curtailment is occurring, how it is occurring, why it is occurring,
and what is being done to reduce curtailment. This summary is
produced as part of the International Energy Agency Wind Task 25
on Design and Operation of Power Systems with Large Amounts of
Wind Power.

Transmission congestion, or local network constraints, is a

common reason for system operators to utilize higher marginalpriced resources instead of less expensive resources. Related to
congestion is insufficient transmission availability. Because of
the mismatch in construction times, wind power plants may be
built somewhat in advance of the necessary transmission to
transport those energy resources to load centers. These new wind
power plants may be curtailed until transmission infrastructure is
commissioned.

Keywords-wind; solar; curtailment; transmission congestion

I.

Minimum operating levels on thermal generators are another

driver for curtailment. Wind, in particular, is often stronger at
night, when loads are low and thermal units are pushed down
against their minimum operating constraints. A related issue is
the requirement for downward reserves. If wind and solar are
unable to provide downward reserves, then sufficient downward
capability may need to be held on thermal units, raising their
operating levels.

INTRODUCTION

In many regions, wind and solar generation are preferred

instead of conventional generation because of their emissions
benefits; policy, legislation, and/or incentives may be established
to encourage the use of wind and solar instead of conventional
generation. Additionally, wind and solar have zero or very low
marginal costs, which means that as long as a system operates
within transmission and operating constraints, wind and solar
tend to displace conventional generation. However, increasing
wind and solar penetration levels may drive a system to
encounter transmission or operational constraints, forcing the
system operator to accept less wind or solar than is available.
High levels of wind and solar power can be challenging to
integrate into power systems because of their variability and
limits in predictability. When high levels are planned,
infrastructural, operational, or institutional changes to the grid
may be necessary. During this transition phase, curtailment may
be higher than after the changes are made. We use the term
curtailment broadly to refer to the use of less wind or solar power
than is potentially available at that time.

Hydro plants may also have minimum operating levels

because of environmental, recreational, or irrigation constraints.
For example, to comply with limits on dissolved gases to protect
fish, operators may be required to run water through their
turbines rather than spill water over a dam.
Curtailment can also occur in the distribution system to avoid
high penetrations or back-feeding, in which a feeder produces
more energy than it consumes, of distributed generation on
feeders, which can lead to voltage control issues as a result of
variability of the wind or solar resource. Back-feeding can be
problematic if protection devices and other infrastructure were
not designed or are not yet adapted for this type of operation.

There are many reasons for curtailment, and system operators

may distinguish between these reasons for compensation and

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at www.nrel.gov/publications.

Finally, limits may be placed on nonsynchronous generation

levels to maintain frequency requirements and stability issues,

especially on small, isolated grids. Modern wind and solar power

plants interconnect to the grid through power electronics.
Because they displace conventional synchronous generation,
which provides inertia and may provide governor response,
system frequency response might suffer if a contingency event
occurs when there is a high penetration of nonsynchronous
generation.
II.

An unusual situation occurred on December 25, 2012: spot

prices in Denmark and Germany were negative because of
surplus energy in both systems. (See Fig. 1.) However, German
prices were below Danish ones, causing an import to Denmark
while Danish producers bids had been curtailed to balance
demand and supply at the minimum price floor of -200 /MWh.
(See Fig. 1.) During these hours, consumption was very low,
market actors with heating boilers were not paying enough
attention to the market and hence did not activate their boilers,
and interconnection capacity to Sweden was reduced to limited
export possibilities. Most importantly, wind in both Denmark and
Germany was high, and total Danish central thermal production
was at a low level of 630 MWh/h to 900 MWh/h during the
critical hours, but electricity was imported from Germany despite
negative prices. Among the bids, which were curtailed pro rata,
may have been those from wind.

EXPERIENCES WITH CURTAILMENT

A. Canada
Hydro Quebec (HQ) currently has 1,500 MW of installed
wind power capacity (5% energy penetration) and expects to have
3,000 MW of installed capacity (10% energy penetration) by
2016. Transnergie, the transmission system operator (TSO),
assumes responsibility for system security. The distributor
purchases power from wind developers, estimates the cost of lost
energy using wind resource data, and compensates the wind plant
operator.
To date, curtailments have been caused by technical faults,
and neither voluntary nor mandatory losses have occurred.
However, additional installed wind capacity is planned for the
Gaspsie Peninsula and will likely result in curtailment caused by
congestion. It may also result in increased voluntary curtailment
to ensure system stability.
Given the current projection for 2016 wind penetration levels,
HQ does not anticipate significant curtailments in the near future.
For similar reasons, HQ has not yet considered valuing curtailed
generation as a source of system operating reserve or strategized
how to reduce future losses.

Figure 1. Spot prices in Denmark and Germany on December 25, 2012.

B. Denmark
At the end of 2012, 4,443 MW of wind power was installed in
Denmark (3,280 MW onshore, 1,163 MW offshore), mostly in
the Western Danish system. These installations produced
10.3 TWh electricity (6.8 TWh onshore, 3.5 TWh offshore),
which is a 30.1 % share of Danish electricity consumption (peak
load in 2012 was 6,106 MW). According to Danish Energy
Policy, wind capacity is expected to increase by 44% by the year
2022, leading to 20.5 TWh annual production. Policy targets
include a 30% renewables share of Danish energy consumption in
2020 (heat and electricity), corresponding to 52% of 2020
electricity consumption sourced from wind.
Wind integration on this scale is supported by strong
interconnections to neighboring systems and functioning
international electricity markets, including negative price signals
to incentivize wind to dispatch down. All wind power is traded in
the markets (day-ahead and intraday power markets), either by
production balancing actors or by the Danish TSO. Wind owners
are compensated at slightly more than the market price.
Compensation for large offshore wind plants is negotiated during
the tendering procedure.

Figure 2. Exchange between Denmark and Germany on December 25, 2012.

To avoid this situation in the future, the following

improvements have been recommended. Market actors should
increase their focus on risk for extreme prices and be prepared to
act accordingly. Offshore wind power plants should not be
compensated by fixed feed-in tariffs during periods of negative
prices. Import capacity to Germany should either be reduced
during these situations, or the negative prices should be
harmonized at both sides of the border. The process toward
harmonization of prices will probably include a reduction of the
current minimum price floor in DK from -200 /MWh
to -500 /MWh, because this will increase the probability of the
market being balanced by price rather than by curtailment in
surplus supply situations. The spot market should be reopened for

In 2012, there were 405 hours during which wind production

exceeded consumption in the Western Danish system and none in
the Eastern Danish system. During these hours, the high-voltage
direct current (HVDC) connections between the Danish systems
and the hydro-based systems in Norway and Sweden are valuable
because wind power can be sent to where it can be used.
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a second auction in case prices appear to be out of a predefined

interval. (This is treated differently at both power exchanges.)

voltage level and located in the south of Italy. Most PV plants are
connected to the distribution grid at the medium- and low-voltage
level (more than 95% of the PV capacity, corresponding to
approximately half a million plants).

C. Ireland
In 2012, Ireland, with an installed wind capacity of 2.1 GW,
dispatched down 110 GWh (2.1% of available wind energy).
Approximately 80% of this was caused by systemwide reasons,
whereas the remainder was a result of local network constraints.
(See Fig. 3.)

Wind curtailment occurs sometimes during low-load days

when there is consistent solar and wind production. Curtailment
is undertaken to relieve congestion and maintain adequate reserve
margins when no other actions on conventional generators are
possible (conventional power plants at minimum generation
level). In fact, in these situations, the instantaneous penetration of
PV and wind can exceed safe system operation levels in terms of
reserve margins, voltage profiles, and dynamic stability issues.

Typically, curtailment occurs during periods of low demand,

most often from 23:00 at night to 09:00 in the morning, when the
minimum generation levels of conventional plants are imposed.
Five types of security limits have been defined that could
necessitate curtailment, including system stability (synchronous
inertia, dynamic and transient stability); operating reserve;
voltage control; morning load rise; and, exceedance of the system
nonsynchronous penetration (SNSP) limit. The SNSP limit,
defined as the ratio of nonsynchronous generation (wind and
HVDC imports) to demand plus HVDC exports, follows from the
Facilitation of Renewables studies [1], which proposed an upper
limit to this ratio (currently 50%) for system stability reasons.

In the past four to five years, significant grid investments

have been made that have increased the transmission capacity
within and between market zones, reducing wind curtailment, as
shown in Table I.
TABLE I.

CURTAILMENT IN ITALY

Year

2009

2010

2011

2012

Total
wind
generation (GWh)

6,543

9,126

9,856

13,407

700

527

264

166

10.70%

5.77%

2.67%

1.24%

Curtailment (GWh)
Curtailment/Total
wind generation

The cost of curtailment is borne by the system, and the TSO

has an incentive by the Italian regulator to reduce the amount of
curtailments that are determined ex post by a third-party
company.
Investments in battery storage (energy and power intensive)
are in progress in southern Italy to increase the flexibility of the
system to reduce levels of wind and solar curtailment, local
congestion, and spinning reserves.

Figure 3. Dispatch-down of wind in Ireland in 2012 [2].

In contrast, local network constraints may occur throughout

the day and are typically imposed because of network limitations,
with the northwest and southwest part of the transmission system
being most affected. Other parts of the network have also
experienced constraints primarily because of maintenance
outages.

E. Japan
In Japan at the end of 2011, the installed capacity of wind and
PV was 2.4 GW and 4.9 GW, respectively, with total energy
penetration at 0.9%. Even after the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) Act (The
Act on Special Measures concerning the Procurement of
Renewable Electric Energy by Operators of Electric Utilities, Act
No. 108 of 2011) was enforced in July 2012, utilities can curtail
wind and solar for a maximum of 30 days (8% annual) without
compensation. These curtailment requirements are stipulated in
the Ministerial Ordinance for Enforcement of the FIT Act (No. 46
of 2012). Some utilities have required wind developers/owners to
install secondary batteries onsite to mitigate wind variability in
addition to the 30-day uncompensated curtailment.

A number of grid rollout programs are in place to minimize

constraint levels. Similarly, the Delivering A Secure Sustainable
Electricity System Program [2] proposes various plant
performance monitoring and new ancillary services, including a
synchronous inertial response, fast frequency response, and fast
post-fault active power recovery, which will enable the SNSP
limit to be raised from 50% to 75%, which is estimated to reduce
the level of curtailment from more than 15% to approximately
6%. As part of grid code requirements, wind turbines have the
capability to provide reserve when dispatched down; however,
this capability is not currently being utilized.

Priority dispatch is not given for renewables in Japan.

Description on the priority dispatch is not in either the FIT Act or
the Ministerial Ordinance. According to the latest grid rule stated
by the Electric Power Council of Japan, curtailment of wind and
solar should be undertaken before other measures such as
interchanges between utilities, curtailment of other power
producers and suppliers (independent generators with mainly
conventional combustion plants), and/or curtailment of baseload
generators. Information is not available on the actual amount of

D. Italy
In Italy at the end of 2012, the installed capacity of wind and
photovoltaic (PV) was 8.1 GW and 16.6 GW, respectively, with
total energy penetration at 9.8% in 2012. (In southern Italy, the
energy penetration was 31%.) Most wind power plants (more
than 95%) are connected to the transmission grid at the 150-kV
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curtailment that has occurred because utilities have not published

this data.

met, curtailment is expected to reach 2.3 TWh, or 3.1% of wind

energy generation, in 2020.

F. Portugal
At the end of 2012, Portugal had 4,517 MW of wind power
capacity installed (20% energy penetration). Legislation restricts
curtailment of renewable energy generation except in the case of
technical problems. Despite several instances of excess wind (and
other nondispatchable plants) in recent years, the Portuguese TSO
has yet to invoke technical problems to curtail wind. For the
purpose of the current paper, excess generation in the Portuguese
control area that is transmitted to Spain at zero value is called
curtailment.

Future policies to mitigate renewable energy curtailment

include providing wind power plant managers with production set
points, which will be developed by the Control Centre of
Renewable Energy. Installing new pumped hydro storage systems
and establishing international transmission interconnections are
additional future strategies Spain is exploring to balance
significant fluctuations in wind power production. The country
may also look to demand-side management, such as smart grid
technologies, to improve the supply-demand balance. Valuing
curtailed generation as a source of operating reserves has not yet
been considered.

Excess renewable energy generation occurs in times of low

loads and high wind. Generation from nondispatchable combined
heat and power (CHP) industrial plants tend to further increase
the supply of energy with high generation during nighttime
periods of low demand.

H. Sweden
In Sweden, the only curtailments that are currently performed
are those caused by grid limitations. If grid reinforcements are
needed when a wind power plant is installed, then the wind
power plant owner has to pay for these. The Swedish TSO may
curtail wind power plants, e.g., in a situation in which a wind
power plant is interconnected before needed grid reinforcements
have been completed and a line outage occurs. A signal is sent
directly to the wind power plant controller to decrease the output.

Portugal typically manages high-penetration events by

controlling production from run-of-river hydro plants, exporting
excess power to the Spanish energy market, and halting the
import of electricity from France through Spain. Portugal has two
dispatch centers that enable the monitoring, control, and
curtailment of a large fraction of wind generation during highsupply/low-demand periods [3,4].

In the Jnkping Energi distribution system operator (DSO),

there is a wind plant with an installed capacity of 29.3 MW. But
because of possible voltage problems, the wind plant owner has
agreed to reduce the infeed to 26 MW. This limitation is
implemented within the plant. The alternative was for the wind
plant owner to pay to strengthen the grid, but analysis of how
often the wind plant would produce more than 26 MW showed
that this was not economically viable. This formally means that
the plant is sometimes curtailed up to 3.3 MW. The agreement
also stipulates that the DSO can decrease the output even farther
below 26 MW if there are voltage problems in the grid. However,
this has not been needed since commissioning in 2010. Again, the
wind plant owner had the option to strengthen the grid at a cost
that was higher than the value of expected wind curtailment [5].

The FIT legislation requires wind producers to be

compensated only for losses that exceed 50 hours at full capacity,
the value of which is calculated at the tariff payment level.
Because of the economic burden introduced by these situations
and significant installed wind power capacity, new connections of
wind power plants to the transmission system have been halted
until 2020, the only exception being one 75-MW offshore
installation.
The Portuguese regulator is currently analyzing the halting of
electricity imports during excess electricity events and has made
an initial recommendation that this procedure be substituted by
countertrading.

I. United States
The United States has many balancing areas, each of which
may have its own curtailment practices. Some key balancing
areas are discussed here. The areas with the greatest amount of
curtailment of wind and solar power to date include the
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) balancing area, the
Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and Hawaii, which has struggled
primarily with excess wind at low-load periods and minimum
generation requirements. Both the Midcontinent Independent
System Operator (MISO) and the Electric Reliability Council of
Texas (ERCOT) have recently implemented market-based
solutions and have seen reductions in curtailment levels.

G. Spain
As of 2012, Spain had 22.6 GW of wind installed (18.1%
energy penetration). Red Elctrica de Espaa (REE) is the
Spanish system operator that manages the distribution and
transmission system. In Spain, wind curtailment typically occurs
when demand is low and wind production is high. Through most
of 2009, curtailments were primarily because of inadequate
transmission and distribution system capacity. However, since the
end of 2009, REE has also curtailed wind to give priority to
scheduled energy and to improve system stability. The need for
curtailment is somewhat reduced during high wind speeds
because many wind power plants are stopped to protect the
turbines from damage or are operating at lower production with
speed regulation controls in place.

BPA has approximately 4,500 MW of wind in its balancing

area and a peak demand of 11,500 MW, although some wind
resources have shifted out of the balancing area recently. There
are two types of curtailments: curtailments caused by exhaustion
of balancing reserves and those that result from seasonal hydro
oversupply. Curtailments caused by the former averaged 7,000
MW in 2012, but have dropped to 1,700 MW so far in 2013.
Curtailments caused by the latter reached approximately 5% to
6% of total available wind generation in spring 2011, but these

Curtailment peaked in 2010 at 202.2 GWh of wind. Energy

curtailed in January March 2013 was 132.5 GWh. The Spanish
Wind Energy Association estimated economic losses as a result
of curtailments from January 2013 to April 2013 to total
approximately 70 million. If the 2020 Spanish wind targets are
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levels dropped to approximately half that amount in spring 2012

[6]. Curtailments have been attributed to a lack of system
flexibility and balancing challenges, which is, in part, caused by
environmental constraints on hydro units. BPA has been
modifying its curtailment protocols and implementing or
exploring measures to help reduce the amount of curtailment,
including faster scheduling, better use of forecasts, and improved
methods of committing and de-committing reserves.

market dispatch. This allows wind to set price and to choose not
to generate if prices are severely negative.
Grid-congestion events result in local curtailments, and
balancing-related events can, in principle, impact either all wind
and PV plants or part of them, depending also on possibilities to
control the output of the plants. First experience on using
curtailed plants for up or down regulation is emerging.
An example of a balancing-related event is shown for the
vertically-integrated utility of Xcel/Public Service of Colorado
(PSCO), which needs to balance its own load with its own
generators (mostly thermal) and long-term contracts with wind
power plant owners. At night, when winds are high and loads are
low, PSCO runs its thermal units down to minimum generation
levels and still needs to curtail wind at times to balance the load.
Fig. 4 depicts an example of this. At 02:45, the system operator
initiated a manual block curtailment of a wind power plant to 300
MW because of a high positive area control error (ACE). ACE
decreased but began to run too low in the negative direction, so at
4 a.m., the operator put the wind power plant on automatic
generation control (AGC), by which ACE signals are sent to the
wind power plant every 4 seconds to 6 seconds to keep ACE
within a prescribed band. This resulted in much better control of
ACE, as shown in Fig. 4. In fact, PSCO has gone a step further,
and when wind is curtailed, they have used wind to provide down
regulating reserves.

In the SPP, lack of transmission access has been the primary

cause of curtailment. Wind has grown rapidlyessentially
doubling in 2012and has come online ahead of planned
transmission. There are approximately 7,000 MW of wind in the
system, which has a peak demand of 54,000 MW [7]. According
to wind generators, at times approximately 40% to 50% of
potential output is being curtailed. The use of manual processes
to implement curtailments has exacerbated the impacts.
Transmission lines scheduled for completion in 2014 or 2015
should help alleviate curtailment in the future. In the meantime,
SPP is holding stakeholder processes to improve and increase
transparency of its curtailment practices, and moving toward an
automated, market-based approach.
MISO, which has more than 12,000 MW of wind capacity
and a peak demand of 98,000 MW, implemented the
Dispatchable Intermittent Resource (DIR) protocol in mid-2011,
which includes wind generators in 5-minute dispatch. As a result,
manual curtailments have decreased. Of wind generators not
participating in the DIR program, curtailment levels range from
1% to 3% of total wind generation [8]. Similar programs are in
place at PJM and the New York Independent System Operator
(NYISO).
ERCOT shifted from a zonal congestion market with 15minute dispatch to a nodal market with 5-minute dispatch in
December 2010. In addition, new transmission was added, which
helped reduce curtailment levels from 17% in 2009, to 8% to 9%
in 2010 to 2011, and 4% in 2012 [7].
III.

HOW WIND IS CURTAILED

There are various approaches to how wind and solar are

curtailed. There is emerging interest in performing curtailment as
part of the market function. The advantage to this approach is that
economic signals regarding the cost-effectiveness of alternative
curtailments (dispatch down) are transparent. If all market
participants, including wind power plants, participate, then the
solution will be economically efficient. In the United States,
MISO, ERCOT, and NYISO are examples that use the market
mechanism. Conversely, when no market mechanism exists or is
available for curtailment, a system operator must typically make
a decision in real time concerning which plant(s) to curtail. The
absence of price signals in this case will likely result in an
economically inefficient outcome. SPP and BPA are example
U.S. regions that use manual curtailment.

Figure 4. ACE during wind on block curtailment and wind on AGC [9].

In Ireland, given the distinction made between constraints

(resolved by reducing the output of particular units) and
curtailment (resolved by reducing the output of any or all units),
constraints are normally applied first, followed by curtailment, if
both are required simultaneously. Curtailment and constraint
instructions are shared out based on the active power control set
point of each unit. When a dispatch-down instruction is required,
noncontrollable wind plants will be prioritized first (by opening
relevant circuit breakers), then controllable wind plants, followed
by wind plants that are still in a commissioning phase.

For example, in 2010, wind was being increasingly curtailed

in MISO via manual phone calls from operators. The DIR
program allows wind to participate in the real-time market like
other generation. MISO obtains a wind forecast for each plant for
each 5-minute interval that sets the maximum for that plant in
that time interval. Wind is part of the co-optimized 5-minute
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IV.

MITIGATION OPTIONS

Reducing curtailment typically involves finding additional

sources of flexibility in the system. These can be physical
additions (e.g., storage), grid capacity, institutional changes (e.g.,
access to a new market) or operational changes.

Portugal has a high wind penetration (20% wind energy in

2012), with limited interconnections to other regions (1,600 MW
to 2,250 MWto Spain) [10]. Other constraints include run-ofriver hydro and significant CHP plants. To reduce wind
curtailment, the Portuguese operator uses pumped hydro and the
intertie to Spain.

Generation [MW]

7000

expected to increase wind curtailment, mainly because of

increased wind generation, but also because of additional
variability from geographically concentrated offshore wind
plants. Market simulations show that wind curtailment is
expected to increase from 0.4 TWh in 2020 to 9.3 TWh in 2030
[12].
The Twenties project studied different mitigation options.
One is introduction of virtual power plantsaggregations of
distributed generation and demand response that replace
conventional generatorsin Denmark in 2030 that will reduce
wind power curtailment by 0.18 TWh [12]. This is marginal
compared to the 9.3-TWh curtailment in Northern Europe, but the
consumption in Denmark is only 2.2% of the consumption in this
region, so the mitigating impact of virtual power plants can be
significant. Anotheris a recommended scenario for feasible
expansion of hydro power and transmission capacity that will
reduce wind power curtailment by 1.5 TWh [13]. This result
confirms that the flexibility of hydro power has a significant
impact on wind power curtailment. Finally, Twenties also
demonstrated the use of dynamic line rating (DLR) technology
for increasing transmission capacity without building additional
lines. A reported 10% to 15% increase in transmission capacity
using DLR would mean a significant reduction of wind
curtailment [14].

Demand
Wind & other IPPs
Wind

6000
5000
4000
3000
2000

1000
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

Figure 5. Portuguese load and generation profiles for May 15, 2011 [3].

For example, on May 15, 2011, at 06:45, wind penetration

reached 81% of load. See Fig. 5. Most of the hydro generation
was shut down, with a few plants staying online to provide
balancing services. The pumped hydro storage facilities were
pumping water up at full output. One thermal plant remained in
operation, and its output was reduced by 25% near 04:00 and
closely coordinated with the hydro units. Imports of electricity
from France through Spain were replaced by exports.

V. IMPLICATIONS OF CURTAILMENT
Curtailment is a growing concern in the wind and solar
industry. It has implications for wind and solar developers and
owners as well as utilities that purchase wind and solar power. In
markets or contracts in which curtailment is not compensated,
developers need to assess the risk and quantify the amount of
future curtailment, which depends on many factors (future
markets, future penetration levels of wind and solar, future
flexibility in the balance of generation, etc.). Even when
curtailment is compensated, developers need to assess the risk
that these rules may change. Utilities with renewable energy
targets also need to assess their risk and quantity of future
curtailment, which is likely to increase with increased
penetrations of wind and solar power. Utilities that are signing
long-term contracts for wind and solar may want to consider who
bears the curtailment risk during the lifetime of the contract. No
easy answers have been identified for how the curtailment risk
should be borne. Legal battles have already been fought about
how wind and solar are curtailed and how much has been
curtailed. This issue is ripe for future research.

In the United States, PSCO has examined in detail the tradeoffs between cycling their coal units and curtailing their wind in
high (2-GW to 3-GW) wind scenarios [11]. They conducted a
detailed analysis of their cycling costs for their coal units to
understand the costs of starts, shallow ramps (to economic
minimum generation levels), and deep ramps (to emergency
minimum generation levels). They determined that shutting down
a coal unit during low-load periods at night was uneconomic.
They then analyzed the trade-off in cycling cost for deep ramps
versus shallow ramps with wind curtailment. Costs were found to
be essentially the same with either mode of operation.
In Ireland, when priority dispatch generation must be
dispatched down, a specific ranking order has been defined with
the principle of preserving least-cost dispatch: the TSO may
perform countertrades on HVDC interconnectors after gate
closure, followed by set point reductions for peat plant, highefficiency CHP, biomass and hydro generation, and finally wind
generation. the output of the peat and CHP units is reduced to
their minimum stable generation levels, rather than decommitted, as such units represent the major source of negative
reserves for the system.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
D.L. thanks the U.S. Department of Energy, which supported
this work under Contract No. DE-AC36-08-GO28308 with the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
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