Planning for Reliability with Variable Renewables: Brazil’s Diagnostic and Pathways for ELCC Implementation

This paper suggests Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) as the core reliability metric linking deterministic, energy-based planning and probabilistic adequacy assessment in power systems with high penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE). ELCC captures the marginal contribution of resources under uncertainty, reflecting time coincidence with system stress and diminishing capacity value as penetration increases.