Abstract: Complementarity analysis of various energy sources is a basis for scientific planning of large wind power and photovoltaic bases. In this paper, a complementary evaluation index system based on a volatility description is formulated, and a multi-time scale analysis of the complementarity of hydropower, wind power and photoelectric is made for the study area: a hydropower, wind power and photoelectric-integrated clean energy base in the lower reaches of the Jinsha River. The results show that the power distribution trends of wind power and photovoltaic power－obtained from Greenwich and PhotoVoltaic Geographic Information System (PVGIS)－agree with the measured sequence, which have high reliability. The complementarity of wind power and photovoltaic is weak, and its probabilities are only 25.5%, 0.0% and 37.2% in intra-day, intra-year and inter-year scales, respectively. Runoff, wind power and photovoltaic are highly complementary, and the probabilities raise to 46.5%, 100.0% and 53.5% in the three scales, respectively.

Key words: lower Jinsha River, hydro-wind-solar integrated system, complementarity, multiple time scales, cascade reservoir