Fossil-fuel plants are increasingly being forced to stop and start production in response to changes in output from renewables. In a new study, researchers developed a dynamic competitive benchmark that accounts for start-up costs and other unit-level operating constraints. They apply their framework to Western Australia, a setting where rooftop solar capacity more than doubled between 2014 to 2018 to world-leading rooftop solar penetration rates. The study found that the large-scale expansion of rooftop solar capacity can lead to increases in the collective profitability of fossil fuel plants because competition softens at sunset— plants displaced by solar during the day must incur start-up costs to compete in the evening.

via Renewable Energy News — ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/n816IEO