Coordinated Planning of Soft Open Point and Energy Storage in Desert Renewable Energy Base

Due to favorable economic and environmental benefits, a large number of renewable energy bases have been constructed in desert areas. However, due to the limitations of simple and fixed grid structures, the thermal stability limits of the early planned transmission lines in these renewable energy bases are unable to meet the increasing installation of photovoltaic (PV) and wind power. Therefore, a planning framework for desert renewable energy bases based on soft open point (SOP) and energy storage (ES) is proposed in this article. By utilizing the temporal and spatial transfer capabilities of SOP and ES, the excessive electrical energy generated in regions with high renewable energy output can be transferred to other lines or stored in batteries, effectively alleviating the problem of power overload in renewable energy bases and improving the utilization efficiency of renewable energy. Case studies based on a real renewable energy base in Lankao China verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.