BENEFITS OF INTERCONNECTION IN THE 2030 INTEGRATED SINGLE ELECTRICITY MARKET (ISEM) WITH HIGH RENEWABLE GENERATION

The government of Ireland has published the “Climate Action Plan 2019” announcing officially for Ireland's 2030 targets to be 70%. To make another successful achievement of this target, wind power will be occupying the highest proportion compared to other renewable generations. Due to the seasonal and intermittent characters associated with most renewable generation, interconnectors and energy storage are playing a vital role to assure the grid security and flexibility. This paper focused on the Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM) interconnection and the benefits for the future grid. The prediction of interconnection capacities, ranging from 580MW to 2030MW, for 2030 I-SEM's best system performance and social benefits had been made. The benefits of interconnection in the 2030 I-SEM with high renewable generation was also revealed. The simulation results including annual wholesale system marginal prices (SMPs), total system generation costs, total system generation revenues, I-SEM emissions and the best level of interconnection capacities had been achieved and analysed. The results showed that the I-SEM SMPs would be reduced by 26.0% comparing with the highest and lowest interconnection capacities. Furthermore, carbon emissions would be reduced by 30.2% in 2030 for Ireland comparing with the case study.