Bulk system reliability impacts of forced wind energy curtailment

Abstract

With rapid growth of wind power in power systems, it becomes important to accurately model the behavior of wind, its interaction with conventional sources and also with other wind resources in order to conduct a realistic assessment of system reliability and benefits from wind energy utilization. At low wind penetration levels, all the wind energy generated is utilized to serve the load. However, at higher penetration levels, wind energy is spilled due to limitations in the ramping capability of the scheduled generating units and transfer capability of transmission lines. The benefits from wind energy are reduced as its spillage increases. Hence, accurate wind models should be developed to include forced wind energy curtailment in the reliability modelling, considering factors such as the system load level, unit dispatch order, ramp rates of the generating units and wind profile diversity between multiple wind farms. A new technique is proposed in this paper to create a comprehensive wind absorption capability model, and embed it in the composite generation and transmission system reliability model. The presented methodology to evaluate bulk system adequacy and wind energy benefits considering wind curtailment due to both the generation and transmission constraints is illustrated on an example system.

Keywords

• system reliability
• bulk power system
• wind energy
• generation schedule
• unit ramp rate
• wind speed correlation