In May I had the pleasure of visiting colleagues at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and the Universidad de Chile, in Santiago, Chile. Like Texas, Chile is moving toward ever higher levels of renewable power, ours in wind, theirs in solar.
Universidad Catolica colleagues and I have been jointly awarded seed funding to investigate models of flexibility in power systems that are needed to accommodate higher levels of renewable integration.
Over the coming months we will work toward a larger proposal on flexibility aimed at cost-effectively facilitating the integration of increasing levels of renewables. Unlike in California and Germany, where renewable integration seems to proceed without any regard to cost or without any attention to the endowment of resources, we aim to make high levels of renewable integration cost-effective in the locations where the resources are abundant.
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While in Santiago I met with the local electricity industry and presented a summary of UT research relating to the flexibility and integration of renewable enery. (Click here to download that presentation.)
It was a great experience to meet colleagues in Chile, including old friends Hugh Rudnick and Rodrigo Palma, and my collaborators Matias Negrete-Pincetic (pictured, at left) and Daniel Olivares Quero (pictured, in center). Later this year, a Universidad Catolica student will be visiting The University of Texas at Austin to work with me, and one of my students will be visiting Universidad Catolica.
