Photovoltaic energy storage on the island

Most island regions are located in remote areas, making it difficult to establish stable connections with mainland power grids. However, they are abundant in solar resources, and fully utilizing solar energy for electricity generation will partially alleviate the current energy shortage on islands.

Solar thermal power generation with thermal storage exhibits good synergy and is suitable for power supply in island regions, but it involves high construction costs and difficulties in large-scale implementation.

However, they are abundant in solar resources, and fully utilizing solar energy for electricity generation will partially alleviate the current energy shortage on islands. Solely relying on photovoltaic power generation poses significant challenges to the operation of island microgrids and cannot avoid large-scale curtailment of solar power.

Additionally, it should be noted that based on the aforementioned energy network scale, a battery capacity of 607.9 MWh would be required to achieve the same dispatchability as Strategy 2 with a PV plus energy storage combination (PV generation with battery storage).

Currently, in island regions, power supply system and heating systems generally operate independently. In regard to electricity demand, on one hand, remote island areas are usually independent of the mainland power grid and only have weak connections with traditional grids.

For the purpose of comparing the economic feasibility of each strategy, this paper assumes that both the PV and CSP power stations employ the same scale of solar fields. The photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) stations have the same photovoltaic conversion efficiency, and their rated capacities are both 50 MW.