RWANDA POWER SYSTEM FLEXIBILITY ASSESSMENT

Introduction

Currently, many developing countries are at a critical moment of facing major challenges of an
exponential growth of energy demand which affect generation portfolios of power system while
there is a significant rapid depletion of natural resources and continuous growth of fuel prices.
On the other hand, there is a great need of power production with free carbon emission and this
has resulted in a very fast integration of renewable energy resources mainly wind and solar
energy in the conventional power system. The limitation of renewable energy resources is the
variability and uncertainties of their output power due to their weather and climate dependence.
Therefore, the variable production of RES combined with fluctuations from the demand side
results in a net-load profile of high volatility. From aforementioned issues, a flexible power
system is required to harmonize with variability and uncertainty of generation and demand
ensuring system reliability at affordable price of electricity.

As discussed in [1], an inflexibility of power system is characterized by a larger amount of

renewable energy curtailment due to the excess of power supply compared to the available load
and transmission line congestion . Also, the inflexibility is shown by the inability of conventional
power plant to reduce its power output, over generation of renewable sources and limited
transmission capacity to balance supply and demand. The failure of balancing the power
generation and consumption results in loss of load or frequency instability. the growth of net
demand variation alters the operation routine of the convention power generation which lead to
inefficiency of baseload generating plants for integrating renewable energy and this affects the
economic feasibility of renewable energy integration.

Research Objectives

The main objective of this study is to explore the role that generation and demand flexibility will play in
the future expansion of power systems, in order to understand its impacts on generation, transmission and
operation investment, renewables integration, and carbon emissions. It will also explore the implication of
investing in flexibility to improve the affordability and sustainability of power systems.

Research Outcome
A well-studied flexibility will not only match generation with demand but also will provide
information about the required changes in power generation, transmission, operation and
development. Additionally, it will help stakeholders’ confidence of investing in renewable
energy promising a lower electricity price with a reduced carbon emission.