The future state of the electricity industry always differs from the scenarios ana­lyzed in large-scale integration studies. Given this fact, studies should focus more on quantifying the relative effect of particular changes in operating policy or technologies than on seeking to precisely quantify the economic or reliability effect of a particular penetration scenario. For example, […]

Several of the studies suggested the need for substantial transmission expansion in order to facilitate high-renewables-penetration scenarios. While some transmis­sion expansion is certainly warranted, large-scale expansion of the bulk trans­mission network is costly and will face substantial siting barriers. Thus there is, in our opinion, a need for creative thinking about how to most effectively […]

Power system reliability modeling is important to wind integration studies, particu­larly given the potential for long periods of low wind and the need to accurately compensate wind plants for their contribution to system adequacy. Regarding the computation of capacity credits for wind, most of the studies used some variant of the ELCC method from Keane […]

The technology for power system PCS has improved substantially across the studies in this review. While some early studies either did not include PCS (e. g., GE Energy, 2008) or did not include accurate transmission system models (e. g.,WindDS in U. S. DOE, 2008), the most recent studies used detailed PCS models that modeled unit […]

Almost all of the studies in this review used net load step-change statistics to esti­mate the need for additional balancing (regulation and load-following) reserves. Most of the studies implicitly or explicitly assumed that load and wind are uncor­related and that the data fit Gaussian statistical models, neither of which is accurate. Methods such as the […]

We have reviewed 11 large North American wind integration studies. This review highlights a number of areas in which wind integration studies have evolved to provide valuable insight, as well as a few areas in which improvements in methods and additional research are needed to facilitate greater insight from future studies. We now summarize our […]

The effect of wind integration depends heavily on the system in which it is being integrated. These studies made numerous recommendations that could reduce the cost of wind integration. First, several of the studies concluded that larger balancing authority areas were better suited to managing wind variability than smaller balancing authorities (Charles River Associates, 2010; […]

Improved wind forecasting techniques also mitigate the difficulty of incorporating wind into the power system (see Chapter 9). Several studies provided estimates of the benefits of perfect wind forecast relative to state-of-the-art wind forecast and found significant operational improvements with improved forecasting (EnerNex Corporation, 2011; GE Energy, 2005a, 2010). EWITS determined that perfect, day – […]