Integrating Wind into the Transmission Grid

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Integrating Wind into the Transmission Grid

• Michael C Brower, PhD
• AWS Truewind LLC
• Albany, New York
• mbrower_at_awstruewind.com

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About AWS Truewind

• Providing integrated consulting services to the
  wind industry
• Responsible for the Irish Wind Atlas (with ESBI,
  initiated by SEI)
• Forecasting for 2000 MW of wind plant in US and
  Europe
• Conducted wind integration studies in US

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Time Scales Electric Power

• Regulation seconds to minutes
• Load following minutes to hours
• Unit commitment hours to days
• Reliability months to years

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Time Scales Wind
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Wind and Wind Plant VariabilityNot the Same
53 MW Capacity
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Propagation of Gusts Through a Wind Farm
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Mean Change in Power vs Number of Turbines at
Flat Rock
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Spatial Diversity of Turbine Output
Correlation coefficient of power change for
different average times over the distance
From Ernst et al, 1999
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Typical 4-Hr PIRP Forecast Performance San
Gorgonio Pass, California - May 2003
Wind Forecasting
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Forecast Accuracy Vs Time
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Forecast Accuracy Vs Output3-Hour Ahead Forecasts
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New York Integration Study

• Evaluating 3300 MW of wind on a 33,000 MW system
• Time scales from seconds to days
• AWS Truewind provided wind data
• GE PSEC performing grid analysis (from AGC to
  day-ahead scheduling)

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NY Study The Challenge

• How to simulate the behavior of 3300 MW of wind
  with little site data?
• Must capture spatial and temporal correlations
• Met stations often not in windy areas and exhibit
  wrong diurnal pattern
• Solution Mesoscale modeling

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NY Study Tasks

• Selected 33 potential project sites with 50-300
  MW capacity
• Used a mesoscale weather model to simulate hourly
  wind speed, direction, temperature for 5
  continuous years
• Sampled 1-min and 1-sec data to synthesize
  sub-hourly fluctuations
• Created statistical model to synthesize plant
  forecasts based on actual forecasts

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Forecasting
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Validation of Dynamic Behavior
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Extreme Wind Events
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Extreme Event System Response
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Conclusions

• Wind, turbine, and wind plant variability are not
  the same
• The more spatial diversity, the less temporal
  variability
• Mesoscale modeling provides a powerful tool for
  analyzing scenarios of large wind penetration