Evaluating the Impact of New Renewable Energy on the Peak Load - An ARDL Approach for Portugal

The integration of intermittent renewable energy will lead to demand surplus, whenever the need for generation from combined-cycle plants increases. This paper focuses on Portugal, a country in which wind power is largely integrated, and which has recently made major investments in solar power. The results show that coal energy management does not contribute to smoothing out the intermittency problems of intermittent renewable energy. The results further demonstrate that the inclusion of intermittent renewable energy in the electricity system leads to a huge need for combined-cycle generation. Thus, this suggests that a differentiated price policy will only be effective if, instead of consumption, the focus is on net load.