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RESTON, Virginia, US, June 7, 2006 (Refocus
Weekly)
The U.S. power grid can accommodate more
electricity from windfarms, but “understanding and quantifying the
impacts of wind plants on utility systems is a critical first step
in identifying and solving problems.”
“In just five years from 2000-2005, wind energy has become a
significant resource on many electric utility systems, with over
50,000 MW of nameplate capacity installed worldwide at the end of
2005,” explains the Utility Wind Integration Group in its
assessment, ‘Utility Wind Integration State of the Art.’ “Wind
energy is now ‘utility scale’ and can affect utility system planning
and operations for both generation and transmission. The utility
industry in general, and transmission system operators in
particular, are beginning to take note.”
The assessment summarizes key points on wind integration and was
produced with the American Public Power Association, Edison Electric
Institute and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. “The
assessment does not support or recommend any particular course of
action or advocate any particular policy or position on the part of
APPA, EEI, or NRECA,” the document notes.
A number of steps can be taken to improve the ability to integrate
increasing amounts of wind capacity on power systems, including
improvements in turbine and windfarm models, improvements in
windfarm operating characteristics, evaluation of wind-integration
operating impacts, incorporating windfarm forecasting into utility
control-room operations, making better use of physically (in
contrast with contractually) available transmission capacity,
upgrading and expanding transmission systems, developing
well-functioning hour-ahead and day-ahead markets, adopting market
rules and tariff provisions that are more appropriate to
weather-driven resources, and consolidating balancing areas into
larger entities or accessing a larger resource base through the use
of dynamic scheduling.
“This document is a summary of the best information available from
around the world on what we currently know about integrating wind
power plants into electric utility systems,” says Charlie Smith of
UWIG. “The message is very positive; we do not see any fundamental
technical barriers at the present time to wind penetrations of up to
20% of system peak demand, which is far beyond where we are today.”
The document focuses on the impact of wind on the operating costs of
conventional portions of the grid, and on wind’s impacts on
electrical integrity.
“The consensus view is that wind power impacts can be managed with
proper design and operation of the system,” adds Smith. “There is
still a lot of work to be done to get the message across and get
everyone up the learning curve, but we are well on the way.”
“On the cost side, at wind penetrations of up to 20% of system peak
demand, system operating cost increases arising from wind
variability and uncertainty amounted to about 10% or less of the
wholesale value of the wind energy,” the report explains. “These
incremental costs, which can be assigned to wind-power generators,
are substantially less than imbalance penalties generally imposed”
through FERC open access transmission tariffs and a variety of means
(including commercially-available wind forecasting) “can be employed
to reduce these costs.”
“There is evidence that with new equipment designs and proper plant
engineering, system stability in response to a major plant or line
outage can actually be improved by the addition of wind generation,”
it notes. “Since wind is primarily an energy - not a capacity -
source, no additional generation needs to be added to provide
back-up capability provided that wind capacity is properly
discounted in the determination of generation capacity adequacy.”
The penetration of wind generation may affect the mix and dispatch
of other generation on the grid over time, since non-wind generation
is needed to maintain system reliability when winds are low. “Wind
generation will also provide some additional load carrying
capability to meet forecasted increases in system demand,” likely to
be 40% of nameplate rating.
The Utility Wind Integration Group was established in 1989 to
provide a critical analysis of wind technology for utility
applications, and to be a source of information on the status of
wind technology and deployment.
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