Spanish researchers have developed a tool that optimizes wind and solar cogeneration. It combines data, solar radiation patterns and wind speeds over time in certain parts of Europe.
Researchers at the University of Murcia have developed Climax, an open source tool that uses the synergy between wind and solar energy to reduce the variability of their combined output. Climax identifies regions with consistent temporal variation in resources and determines the optimal allocation of each technology to these regions.
“The target location area and the temporal scale (where the temporal variation of production is to be reduced) are valid fields, the total shares of each technology can be fixed, forced to stay above/below certain thresholds, or allowed to freely find their own. optimal, and the guaranteed minimum production can be changed,” the researchers said. “In addition, additional code is available on the website to find optimal locations for new installations given the current spatial distribution of facilities, which may be the tool’s most useful application for short-term decision-making.”
They presented the new tool in a paper, “An Activity-Based Approach to Maximizing Wind-Solar Complementarity,” published in The future of the country.
“The method, implemented using an open-access user-friendly and customizable tool called Climax (http://climax.inf.um.es/), is proven here in an illustrative pilot study in pan-European areas where the temporal variability of monthly wind plus solar production needs to be reduced,” the researchers said. .
