Zonal Flexibility Assessment of High-Renewable Power Systems: A KPI-Based Study of the SE3 Bidding Zone in Sweden

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a multi-KPI framework for flexibility assessment that can be replicated and extended to other zones or markets.

🏢実務担当者:System operators can use these KPIs to quantify flexibility adequacy and identify reliance on interconnections vs. local resources.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the role of cross-border interconnections in enabling high renewable shares, informing grid expansion and market design.

High renewable energy penetration increases system flexibility requirements, making zone-level assessment essential for long-term system planning. Many previous studies relied on single-metric approaches, capturing only specific aspects of flexibility. More recent work introduced multiple indicators but still assumed fixed reserve margins that fail to reflect the actual flexibility requirements. This study assesses flexibility using four key performance indicators (KPIs): (1) Net Load Ramp Requirement (NLRR), the maximum generation adjustment rate needed to balance net load changes; (2) Insufficient Ramping Resource Expectation (IRRE), the probability that ramping demand exceeds available capacity; (3) Flexibility Reserve Margin (FRM), excess flexible capacity beyond worst-case renewable variability; and (4) Interconnection Flexibility Index (IFI), the extent to which renewable fluctuations can be balanced through interconnection-based cross-border exchanges. The assessment is applied to evaluate the flexibility status for one of the bidding zones of Sweden, SE3, using hourly data of 2024. Results indicated high flexibility adequacy, with limited ramping shortages and strong interconnection support. For example, the maximum NLRR reached 340 MW/h in winter, indicating significant upward flexibility demand. IRRE was 0.03% or 3 hours/year, implying ramp-scarcity occurs infrequently. The minimum FRM was 287%, showing that SE3 had strong flexibility support, mainly from interconnections (78%) and hydropower, and IFI reached 501% for upward ramping (import increases) and 424% for downward ramping (import decreases), indicating strong inter-zonal buffering. These KPIs-based results suggest that SE3 maintained high operational flexibility in 2024, mainly supported by cross-border interconnections, providing a basis for future flexibility risk assessment under extreme conditions.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/3214/1/012017first seen 2026-07-24 06:42:28