@article {416956,
	title = {Reducing curtailment of wind electricity in China by employing electric boilers for heat and pumped hydro for energy storage},
	journal = {Applied Energy},
	volume = {184},
	year = {2016},
	month = {December 2016},
	pages = {987-994},
	abstract = {<p class="TAMainText">
	Accommodating variable wind power poses a critical challenge for electric power systems that are heavily dependent on combined heat and power (CHP) plants, as is the case for north China. An improved unit-commitment model is applied to evaluate potential benefits from pumped hydro storage (PHS) and electric boilers (EBs) in West Inner Mongolia (WIM), where CHP capacity is projected to increase\&nbsp;to 33.8 GW by 2020. A business-as-usual (BAU) reference case assumes deployment of 20 GW of wind capacity. Compared to BAU, expanding wind capacity to 40 GW would allow for a reduction in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions of 33.9 million tons, but at a relatively high cost of US$25.3/ton, reflecting primarily high associated curtailment of wind electricity (20.4\%). A number of scenarios adding PHS and/or EBs combined with higher levels of wind capacity are evaluated. The best case indicates that a combination of PHS (3.6 GW) and EBs (6.2 GW) together with 40 GW of wind capacity would reduce CO<sub>2</sub>\&nbsp;emissions by 43.5 million tons compared to BAU, and at a lower cost of US$16.0/ton. Achieving this outcome will require a price-incentive policy designed to ensure the profitability of both PHS and EB facilities.
</p>
},
	url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915013896},
	author = {Zhang, Ning and Lu, Xi and Nielsen, Chris P and McElroy, Michael B. and Chen, Xinyu and Deng, Yu and Kang, Chongqing}
}
