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Up with Wind

AS WIND POWER CONTINUES TO BE one of the fastest-growing energy sources worldwide, utility planners and operators must meet the challenge of integrating increasing levels of wind power into their electrical power systems. These challenges stem from the nondispatchable nature of wind power and can be broken down into components associated with variability (i.e., effects due to the changing wind resource) and uncertainty (i.e., effects related to our inability to perfectly forecast the weather). In the past, utilities were often motivated to conduct an integration study to determine the costs associated with integrating wind power into their systems; recently, however, there has been a move away from a simple determination of wind-integration costs and towards a balanced view of both integration costs and operational savings due to displaced fuel and emissions. The articles on wind integration in the December 2005 and 2007 issues of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine introduced methodologies

By Dave Corbus, Debbie Lew, Gary Jordan, Wilhelm Winters, Frans Van Hull, John Manobianco, and Bob Zavadil
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934260

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Studying the Integration and Transmission of Higher Levels of Wind Power

DIGITAL VISION

and analyses in this eld and compiled numerous insights and best practices from the early work. Major integration study results (e.g., New York 2005, Minnesota 2006) were included, and these focused on specic states or utilities. Since then, wind-integration studies have evolved to consider higher wind penetrations and larger regions, which leads to a greater focus on new transmission needs. Such a regional study approach allows additional questions to be answered, including: How do local wind resources compare with higher capacity-factor wind that requires more transmission? How does the geographic diversity of wind power reduce wind-integration costs (i.e., by spreading the wind over a larger region and thereby smoothing out some of the variability)? How does offshore wind compare with onshore wind? How does balancing area consolidation or cooperation affect wind power integration costs? How much new transmission is needed to facilitate higher penetrations of wind power? What is the role and value of wind forecasting? What role do shorter scheduling intervals have to play? How are wind power integration costs spread over large market footprints and regions? What additional operating reserves are needed for large wind power deployments? In this article, we focus on three important aspects of large regional wind-integration studies: wind data development, transmission analysis, and the modeling of wind-integration scenarios. Careful development and validation of the wind data inputs to an integration study are essential to obtain meaningful results. New transmission will be required for much of the future wind development; hence, it is imperative to plan for this transmission because it takes longer to build new transmission than it does to build wind plants. The transmission analysis can include a transmission-expansion plan to be done as part of the wind-integration study or can use existing transmission plans and analyze potential congestion. Finally, scenario modeling investigates the operational impacts of wind variability and uncertainty. The production cost models can be either deterministic or stochastic in nature. They can examine a wide range of sensitivities,
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One of the interesting results to date from EWITS is that wind-integration costs are driven primarily by reserve costs rather than uncertainty.

including unit commitment and operating reserve considerations, different market scenarios, carbon reductions for different scenarios, storage considerations, forecasting, and the contribution of wind to system reliability.

Wind Data Development

It is important in wind integration studies to use concurrent load and wind data to capture the correlations between load and wind (weather). As the December 2007 issue of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine discussed, the use of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models is an accepted method for producing time-series wind plant output data. Essentially, physics-based, numerical simulations on supercomputers, integrated with observational data sets, recreate the weather of historical years and generate a 3-D gridded wind speed data set. A wind-speed time series can be extracted and converted to wind power output. This approach produces a temporally, spatially, and physically consistent wind data set. It also allows for modeling of proposed plants that lack measured wind-speed data, allowing users to explore what if scenarios. However, models are limited in that they can only simulate scales of motion resolved by their three-dimensional grids. Additionally, model-generated data often contain biases relative to actual observations resulting from an inadequate or incomplete representation of physical processes in the model. Wind forecasting is an increasingly common tool for utilities and independent system operators (ISOs) in scheduling generation units or calculating needed balancing reserves. Wind-integration studies typically include the impact of wind-forecast errors on integration costs, and the wind forecasts are developed as part of the wind-data output.

Once the MASS simulations were completed, data were extracted at ten-minute intervals. The meteorological data generated by MASS were scaled to long-term wind speeds, bias-corrected to match diurnal patterns from tall tower observations, adjusted for turbine wake and other losses, time-ltered to account for observed variability, and converted to plant output with density-adjusted generic composite power curves. Synthetic forecast data were generated in a two-step process. First, simulated hour-ahead and day-ahead power forecasts were generated for each day in the study period for four sites in the project domain for which actual power data were available. These forecasts were produced by a statistical model that was trained on a rolling 30-day sample of predictors from the output of the MASS simulations and recent observed data from the site. This forecast data was used to construct a probability matrix for each site that linked the probability of a forecast error to the actual production level at the time and to forecast errors at previous times. In the second step, one of the four probability matrices was selected at random for each hypothetical wind-project site. Starting with a random seed, a forecast was synthesized for this site on an interval-by-interval basis by taking random draws from the probability matrix. This procedure yielded a forecast for each hypothetical wind-project site that exhibited the same error distribution and autocorrelation behavior as one of the actual forecasts.

TradeWind Study
In the TradeWind study, NNGR analyses at six-hour intervals were used as a cost-effective, consistent data set across Europe. The data were linearly interpolated to hourly values. To address the coarse spatial resolution, a terrain-elevation adjustment was applied to obtain more representative hourly wind speeds for general classes of lowland, upland, and offshore wind plants. The terrain classes also included hub height and wind shear exponent adjustments for present and future scenarios. The resulting data were bias-corrected as well, so that annual capacity factors more closely matched those calculated from operating wind plants in Europe. Wind power conversion was accomplished using an equivalent power curve that accounted for spatial averaging across large areas and various loss factors. NWP models tend to underestimate wind variability and generate wind-speed data that are too smooth. Wind variability, however, is one of the most important factors inuencing wind integration.
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Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS)

For example, in EWITS, as described below, the Mesoscale Atmospheric Simulation System (MASS) was used to generate wind-resource and power-output projections at potential onshore and offshore wind plant sites in the eastern United States. MASS was initialized using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research Global Reanalysis (NNGR) data. The NNGR data provide a snapshot of atmospheric conditions around the world every six hours at 19 levels in the troposphere and lower stratosphere on a 210-km grid. Weather observations were assimilated every 12 hours, introducing a discontinuity in the data, which was then smoothed out.
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In this case, stochastic variability was added to the windspeed data so that the power spectral density was similar to that of measured data. Simulated forecasts for individual sites were not explicitly generated in this study. Forecast error magnitudes achievable by modern forecasting techniques were estimated as a function of the look-ahead time period based on published work and the experience of project team members. The focus was on the estimation of typical forecast errors for regional aggregates, not individual plants. When needed in the grid- and market-simulation calculations, forecast errors were generated by randomly extracting values from a Gaussian distribution model dened by state-of-the-art forecast error estimates, under the assumption that current errors are uncorrelated with those from previous time intervals. In the European Wind Integration Study (EWIS), the data set derived within the TradeWind study was used as the basis for the analyses undertaken. For most of the countries, the TradeWind study data on installed wind power capacities were modied by information obtained from the individual transmission system operators (TSOs). In those European countries with high levels of wind power today and in the future, namely Denmark, Germany (onshore), Spain, and Ireland, the TradeWind study time series were additionally replaced by measured time series of wind power generation to derive wind power time series for the year being analyzed. Furthermore, the considered time series for all countries were adapted to a normal wind year. In order to take into account the restricted predictability of wind power feed-in, short-term wind forecast errors have been simulated by the use of random drawings. These consider the characteristics of forecast errors of contemporary prediction systems like the dependency on the forecast horizon as well as typical error distributions. Spatial smoothing and further conditions of wind power conversion have been considered by applying those equivalent power curves of the TradeWind study.

tograms of wind plant changes on a ten-minute and hourly timescale are compared to determine data set quality. Less important factors are the consistent under- or overproduction of wind power or exact matching of time-series data. Forecast errors, and the distribution of those errors, are also important indicators of data set quality. Overbiased wind forecasts can lead to high integration costs as fewer units are scheduled and more-expensive units need to be dispatched when the wind does not show up. Existing wind-forecast techniques tend to have low errors when wind changes are minimal and high errors when the wind is ramping. A forecast data set whose mean absolute error was independent of how the wind was ramping would probably underestimate integration costs because it would not capture the fact that forecast errors tend to be high when wind is ramping, which may have large operational impacts. As shown in Table 1, grid-integration studies in California, New York, and Texas indicate that a large fraction of the economic benet from a perfect day-ahead wind power production forecast can be realized through the use of current state-of-the-art forecasts. For example, the New York study found that a perfect forecast would result in a cost reduction of US$120 million. A current state-of-the-art forecast could realize US$95 million, or almost 80% of the savings associated with a perfect forecast. However, it should be noted that these studies focus on economic implications of different day-ahead unit commitment strategies and not the intraday management of grid stability and security. The mode of use and the sensitivity to forecast errors can be substantially different for these two applications.

Major Large-Scale Wind Integration Studies

Several large-scale wind integration studies, two from the United States and two from Europe, have either been completed or are close to completion and are described in the following sections.

Is the Wind Data Set Good Enough?

To investigate the impact of wind variability on system operations, it is crucial that the ramping behavior of modeled wind plants match that of actual wind plants. Typically, his-

Western Wind and Solar Integration Study

The Western Wind and Solar Integration Study (WWSIS) considers the operational impact of high penetrations of wind, photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) on

table 1. Impact of wind forecasting on grid operating costs in U.S. dollars (source: GE Energy). Annual Operating Cost Savings Peak Load California New York Texas 64 GW 64 GW 33 GW 65 GW 65 GW 65 GW Wind Generation 7.5 GW 12.5 GW 3.3 GW 5.0 GW 10.0 GW 15.0 GW SOA Forecast Versus No Forecast $68 million $160 million $95 million $20 million $180 million $510 million Perfect Forecast Versus SOA Forecast $19 million $38 million $25 million $20 million $60 million $10 million
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the transmission grid operated by the WestConnect group of utilities in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The WWSIS is being performed by an NRELcoordinated study team. Up to 35% (by energy) renewables

Study Area DispatchWeek of 10 AprilNo Wind 50,000 40,000 MW 30,000 20,000 10,000 0

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(c) Nuclear Gas Turbine Solar CSP w/Storage Steam Coal Solar PV Pumped Storage Hydro Wind Hydro Combined Cycle

figure 1. April 2006 dispatch by type for (a) no new renewables and (b) 35% renewables penetration. (c) July 2006 dispatch by type with 35% renewables penetration.
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penetration in the study footprint and up to 23% renewables in the rest of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) are modeled for the year 2017 using the historical weather and load patterns from 2004, 2005, and 2006. This high level of penetration outside the study footprint is important because it prevents much of the exporting of the problem that has occurred in some other studies that have ignored signicant penetrations outside the area of interest. An NWP model was run over the western half of the United States to generate a 2-km wind-speed data set at a tenminute interval, wind power proles for 960 GW, and dayahead wind power forecasts. A satellite cloud-cover model produced an hourly, 10-km gridded solar radiation data set that generated 15 GW of PV and 200 GW of CSP proles. Three scenarios were developed, with additional scenarios to be dened depending on initial results: The in-area scenario adds the wind and solar generation on roughly a state-by-state basis to eliminate the need for large, long-distance transmission build-outs. At 30% wind penetration, this scenario requires 30 GW of wind inside the study footprint and 45 GW of wind in the rest of WECC. The mega-project scenario provides the opposite bookend by selecting wind and solar sites that have the least cost of delivered energy and building the long-distance transmission to access them. At 30% wind penetration, this included 24 GW of installed wind capacity, with 6,900 GW-miles of high-voltage transmission; it cost US$1 billion less than the In-Area scenario. The local priority scenario falls in between the other two. This scenario selected the sites with the lowest cost of delivered energy but gave in-state resources a 10% capital cost discount. This scenario included 27 GW of wind and 2,100 GW-miles of high-voltage transmission; it cost US$3 billion less than the InArea Scenario. These scenarios were modeled with the following penetration rates: no new renewables; 11% renewables (10% wind, 1% solar in study footprint); 23% renewables (20% wind, 3% solar); and 35% renewables (30% wind, 5% solar). The statistical and operational impacts of these scenarios were examined. The rst impact noted is that 35% renewable energy penetration over the year is comprised of months like April when more than 55% of the energy is from renewables and months like July and August, when less than 20% of the energy is from renewables. Even more challenging is that on an hourly basis, the wind and solar generation sometimes exceeds 100% of the study area load. Figure 1(a) shows the hourly dispatch by generation type (using GEs Multi-Area Production Simulation model) for the WestConnect study area in April 2006, when no wind or solar generation is present. The coal and nuclear generation is base load (the dip in nuclear output is due to scheduled maintenance), the combined cycle (CC) units are in base load/intermediate mode, and the hydropower is largely used for peak shaving.
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Figure 1(b) shows the operation with 35% renewables penetration. The CC units are almost completely off, gas turbine output has increased, and the coal plants are cycling signicantly. Even the nuclear units are trying to cycle somewhat, which more than likely would indicate a need to spill some of the wind generation. Total generation inside the study area drops because the rest of the WECC, with 23% renewables penetration, is now reducing its need for imports from the study area. The penetration level of renewables in the rest of the Western Interconnection has a signicant impact on what happens inside the study footprint. At higher penetrations, the study also found that the forecast accuracy appears to be more critical than the hourly variability. This particular week in April was a severe wind week. Other months did not have as much impact. Figure 1(c) shows operation for a week in mid-July for the 35% penetration scenario, which did not seem to present any operational strain on the system. The impact of increased renewables penetration on existing pumped hydro storage was also investigated in the InArea scenario. While pumped hydro storage use increases with increasing renewables penetration, it does not top out or demonstrate a need for additional pumped hydro storage capacity at the 35% renewables level. Additional sensitivity cases and scenarios are yet to be run and may include high penetrations of PV that will require modeling large, centralized PV plants, the variability of which is not well understood, especially at short timescales (one second to one minute).

EWITS
EWITS evaluates the operational impact of large amounts of wind on the Eastern Interconnection and coincides with transmission analyses being conducted by several regional grid operators, including PJM Interconnection (PJM), Midwest ISO (MISO), Southwest Power Pool

(SPP), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), and other related entities. Historical weather and load patterns from 2004, 2005, and 2006 were used to model wind integration for the year 2024. EWITS is an example of a wind-integration study that includes detailed transmission-expansion modeling. The wind-integration and transmission analysis is again being lead by an NREL-coordinated study team that incorporates European participation. EWITS uses four different scenarios of future wind penetration (three 20% wind scenarios and one 30% wind scenario). The scenarios range from utilization of higher capacity factor wind in the Midwest with more transmission build-out to placing more emphasis on local or lower capacity factor wind. The highcapacity factor scenario requires a signicant build-out of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission with high-voltage ac collector systems to deliver the wind power from the Midwest to the load centers on the East Coast. The local wind scenario demonstrates that offshore wind is needed for 20% wind penetration and reveals what future onshore and offshore transmission might look like for the East Coast. The 30% wind-penetration scenario requires a large transmission build-out, the use of local wind, and signicant offshore wind. While long-distance transmission requirements are reduced for the local scenario, all of the scenarios with 20% and 30% wind require a substantial interconnectwide overlay to tie the system together. Table 2 displays a summary of the fours EWITS scenarios. Transmission ows between regions in EWITS are determined by the difference between PROMOD transmission simulations using a copper sheet (no transmission constraints, no congestion) versus those using the existing transmission system. Figure 2 shows the transmission overlay for the third scenario: high-voltage ac collector systems are used to feed the HVDC transmission (shown in black) that carry energy from west to east and also from

table 2. EWITS scenarios 14. 1) Lowest-Cost Wind (Higher-Capacity Factor Wind), 20% Wind Region MISO/ MAPP SPP TVA SERC PJM NYISO ISO-NE Total Capacity Total (MW) 120,075 66,576 1,247 1,009 22,669 7,742 4,291 223,609 Offshore (MW) 2) Hybrid with Offshore, 20% Wind Total (MW) 86,306 69,804 1,247 5,009 33,192 16,507 13,837 225,902 Offshore (MW) 4,000 5,000 2,620 5,000 16,620 3) Local Wind (Aggressive Offshore), 20% Wind Total (MW) 57,885 39,328 1,247 5,009 78,736 23,167 24,927 230,299 Offshore (MW) 4,000 39,780 9,280 11,040 64,100 4) Aggressive On- and Offshore, 30% Wind Total (MW) 120,313 69,309 1,247 5,009 97,736 23,167 24,927 337,708 Offshore (MW) 4,000 54,780 9,280 11,040 79,100
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Midwest ISO-Using Ventyx, Velocity Suite 2009

figure 2. EWITS transmission overlay for the third scenario.

offshore to the south. The large difference in the locational marginal price (LMP) of generation between the Midwest and the East results in an economic benet that can justify the build-out of transmission from the Midwest to the East. EWITS uses the PROMOD model to perform the hourly production cost simulations, using the transmission over-

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figure 3. Comparison of ten-minute variability as diversity increases: ten-minute changes as a function of production.
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lays for each scenario and the wind plant outputs described previously. PROMOD calculates the wind at each injection bus and dispatches conventional generation units accordingly for each market region while solving at the node for the LMP price using a 24-hour forecast. There is a hurdle rate that accounts for hourly transactions between 11 different market regions. The simulation is done for the entire study region, and the wind plant and load time series capture the geographic Scenario_3_TLines by kV diversity. One important nding 230 (1) is that the hurdle rates between 345 (47) regions do not make a large con400 (5) tribution to the overall wind inte500 (37) gration costs. 765 (61) Operating and contingency 800 (20) reserves are calculated outside the PROMOD model and entered into the model for each region. One of the interesting results to date from EWITS is that wind-integration costs are driven primarily by reserve costs (i.e., by the variability of wind) rather than uncertainty (i.e., the inability to accurately forecast wind a day ahead). Therefore, the methodology for calculating reserves is a very important part of the integration study. Capturing the geographical diversity of the wind for the large study region is an important part of the modeling. Figure 3 shows a plot of the normalized standard deviation measured at varying production levels for ve regions of different sizes, from 85 GW of wind generation for a full market region (e.g., MISO) down to a single 500-MW plant. Each smaller group is a subset of the larger one, with corresponding differences in land area. The plot shows how the variability of the wind reduces signicantly with expanding wind capacity. Another interesting aspect of the plot is that the peak of the variability corresponds to a production output of about 50%. EWITS will include two sensitivity analyses for the second of the four scenarios: a carbon-sensitivity case using PROMOD to model carbon emissions at a price that causes shifts to gas generation from coal generation, and a model-sensitivity case using the Wind Power Integration in Liberalized Electricity Markets (WILMAR) model from Europe to look at rolling unit commitment (e.g., generator dispatch at three-hour intervals) and stochastic (i.e., probabilistic) unit commitment. It is anticipated that the EWITS study will continue to build on the body of knowledge accumulated in Phase I by looking at additional modeling sensitivities in Phase II, including
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sensitivities to load (e.g., demand-side management), market size, and reserve modeling.

table 3. TradeWind-installed wind capacity scenarios (GW).

Scenario Low 2005 42.0 2008 56.2 2010 69.0 2015 101.3 2020 140.8 2030 198.9

TradeWind Study (Europe)

The European TradeWind project explored how improved power exchange between member states in terms of increased Medium 42.0 64.9 85.4 139.3 199.9 293.5 transmission capacity and more efcient market mechanisms High 42.0 76.0 105.0 179.1 255.8 364.9 can help integrate 300 GW of wind power in Europe. The in 2020 and beyond. The increased bottlenecks restrictstudy addressed two key issues: weak interconnectivity leved access to cheaper generation resources, resulting in els between the control zones in Europe and the inexible, higher electricity prices. fragmented nature of the European power market. Uncertainty of the wind resource further exacerEuropean transmission power ows were simulated bated congestion. The impact of day-ahead wind with up to 300 GW of wind (approximately 25% of elecpower forecast errors on the predicted cross-border tricity demand) for 2030. The model idealized Europe as a power ows was investigated as a function of insingle control area with a single grid and a perfectly funccreasing wind penetration. The difference between tioning power market with economic dispatch. Wind sceactual and planned cross-border ows was typically narios, developed using data discussed previously, were between 0% and 20% of line capacity and underdeveloped for three study scenarios (low, medium, and scored the importance of forecast errors in integrahigh) corresponding to wind power ranging from 200 GW tion studies. in the low scenario to 365 GW in the high scenario, as Existing transmission-upgrade plans are insufcient to shown in Table 3. alleviate bottlenecks and prevent unnecessarily high TradeWind used equivalent network representations of system costs in 2020 and 2030. TradeWind has identithe four synchronous zones in Europe (Union for the Coored 42 interconnectors and an upgrade schedule that dination of Transmission of Electricity, or UCTE; Nordel; would benet the European power system and its abilthe island of Great Britain; and the island of Ireland). The ity to integrate wind power. A conservative estimate power ow data for the four systems were merged together, of benets showed that by 2020 and 2030, benets and the model compared well with actual cross-border amounted to total system operational savings of ; 1.5 exchanges and results from a more detailed recent network billion per year (see Figure 5), justifying transmission model for the UCTE area. Market scenarios up to the year investments on the order of ; 22 billion. 2030 with increasing wind power were modeled using the A meshed offshore grid linking future North Sea and production simulation tools Prosym and the WILMAR Baltic Sea wind plants to the onshore transmission grid planning tool. was found to result in increased cable use, better acMajor ndings of the TradeWind study included: Aggregated wind across Europe resulted in smoothed, cess to the exible hydroelectric capacity of Norway, less variable output. Figure 4 shows how aggregated wind power from increasingly December 2000 Wind Speeds, 2,030 MW Amounts 100% larger areas in Europe has a smoothing effect on wind 90% power variations during a 80% winter month. The average 70% wind capacity factor across 60% Europe for the period shown 50% is around 30%, about 20% 40% higher than the annual aver30% age capacity factor (24%). 20% Adequate cross-border ex10% change is important to cap0% ture the benets of coincident 1 169 337 505 673 high-wind power production Netherlands 7,000 MW UCTE 226,000 MW during times of high load. BeNeLux + Fra + UCTE + GB + Ger 111,500 MW Nordel 268,300 MW Existing cross-border transmission bottlenecks worsened, especially with the in- figure 4. The smoothing effect of aggregating European-wide wind power during a stalled capacities expected winter month in 2030.
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We focus on three important aspects of large regional wind-integration studies: wind data development, transmission analysis, and the modeling of wind-integration scenarios.

EWIS
Fifteen European TSOs, through the TSO trade organization Euro0.3 Total Operational Cost Reduction (M) pean Network of Transmission 1,200 0.25 System Operators for Electricity 1,000 (ENTSO-E), initiated EWIS to 0.2 study the integration of large800 0.15 scale wind power into Europes 600 electrical power systems. This 0.1 400 study covers the technical, oper0.05 ational, economic, regulatory, 200 and market aspects of integrat0 0 ing wind into the power system, particularly the transmission network. EWIS seeks the best use of the pan-European transmission network and seeks common European solutions to wind-intefigure 5. Reduction in system operation costs resulting from transmission upgrades. gration challenges. Wind is Europes fastesthigher exibility for transporting offshore wind power growing energy source, and European TSOs are already to areas of high prices, and improved power trading. actively addressing the issues associated with wind integra The capacity value of wind power was increased sig- tion, including: nicantly with better interconnection. The capacity establishing direct connections to large onshore and offshore wind plants value of aggregated wind across multiple countries planning for interconnection with increasingly active in 2020 was nearly twice that for individual countries distribution networks (14% versus 8%). In this way, the 200 GW of wind reinforcing network pinch points within and between power installed in 2020 replaces 27 GW of rm connational networks ventional generation capacity in the system. Without developing balancing arrangements through enhanced the increased power exchange, it would replace only control arrangements and market mechanisms 60% of this value. The establishment of intraday markets for cross-bor developing appropriate, harmonized grid codes to fader trade resulted in savings of ;12 billion per year cilitate large-scale wind entry. as compared with day-ahead scheduling of cross-borEarlier EWIS results include the identication of mitigader exchanges. Rescheduling the generation portfolio tion options to accommodate renewables while maintaining intraday and incorporating wind power forecasts up reliability in the existing European transmission network. to three hours before delivery resulted in a reduction Currently, EWIS is analyzing scenarios for the year 2015, in system costs of ; 260 million per year (compared investigating new investments, control systems, and market with day-ahead scheduling) due to decreases in sys- incentives. This analysis permits researchers to assess the tem reserves. implications of the renewables targets for 2020. The TradeWind study was a rst attempt to model wind and EWIS quantied the potential implications of the curtransmission impacts across Europe. It is recommended that rent representation of network limits in the European marfuture studies build on these data sets and approaches, using ket by comparing scheduled interhub exchanges and the more detailed network data of the UCTE area. In addition, resulting network physical ows. This has been assessed other interactions could be incorporated, such as the role of by examining ow volumes, the scale of potential market other renewables, demand-side management, and smart grids. curtailments, additional operational costs that would result
0.35 Operational Cost Reduction (/MWh) 1,400 1,600

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from ow adjustments accomplished through system operator countertrading, and the cost of mitigating network reinforcements. EWIS results from the scenarios show that high wind power production causes regional overloading of transmission lines (Figure 6). In this case, the regional surplus of wind generation results in large unscheduled ows through neighboring transmission systems. In some regions, grid reinforcements are necessary, e.g., the 850 km of new 380-kV overhead lines in Germany that are expected to be completed by 2015. Corrective switching, phase shifters, and exible line-capacity management for relevant North-to-South transmission corridors are foreseen in addition to the national grid development plans needed to enhance existing system exibility and increase network capability measures. The identication of network measures to meet future needs is important. The particular relevance of wind generation to the need for a better representation of network physical limits in the market is clear. The need is due to the implications of wind-output characteristics, which require reinforcing the networks economically to reduce the amount of time during which congestion might arise. The EWIS economic analyses have explored these aspects of network ows with wind generation (see Figure 7). EWIS has employed Europe-wide market and network models, developed in the course of the study, for identifying, justifying, and coordinating network reinforcements to accommodate European market ows with signicant wind contributions in the future. The preliminary results of the EWIS study show the need

figure 6. Power flow and bottlenecks expected in 2015 in the EWIS High Wind North scenario.

for additional grid reinforcement in regions with high wind power installations.

Future Research
The eld of wind integration has and will continue to evolve as more experience is gained, both in analysis and in the control room, and as the utility situation changes (to higher wind penetrations and broader regional coordination). Some key areas that deserve further research and analysis include: Model development: Production cost models, both deterministic and stochastic, need to be further advanced to adequately simulate utility operations (including subhourly timescales) and unit

Sustainable Risk-Mitigation Measures EWIS Market Model (SUPWISci) Support for Future Exchange Capacities Between Countries General Comments on Coordinated Pan European Long-Term Measures

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Congestion Original Supply Reduced Supply Curve C B Curve C B Unconstrained A Equilibrium C CA = CB Original Welfare Loss

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1Z(PA before reinforcement PB before reinforcement) (PA after reinforcement PB after reinforcement) Z dt

figure 7. Sustainable risk-mitigation measures to increase network capability and flexibility in central Europe.
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commitment of generation in response to higher wind penetrations. Operating reserves: A better understanding of the required operating reserves with larger wind penetrations is needed for improved system operations. Determining the correct generation mix: What is the appropriate conventional generation mix with large wind deployments? Uncertainty versus variability: In some studies, the cost of wind integration is broken down into uncertainty and variability components, where uncertainty is calculated based on the difference between a perfect and a state-of-the-art forecast. Various methodologies can be used to estimate the cost due to variability at different timescales. How to compare wind: Previous integration studies often compared wind to a daily at block of energy that delivered the same amount of energy as the wind each day. This gave a conservative estimate of comparing wind to a perfectly reliable energy source. As penetration levels increased, this methodology no longer worked because it could result in large deviations from one day to the next. EWITS addresses this issue by using an hourly at block comparison instead. Forecasting: WWSIS, TradeWind, and a 20% wind study in Colorado by Xcel Energy all found that wind forecasts can have a great impact on wind-integration costs. At the same time, wind forecasters are tuning their techniques to better forecast for specic issues (such as ramps and other extreme events) rather than a mean absolute error. There is an opportunity for windintegration studies to model the impact of different forecasts, integrated in operations in various ways, to help utilities make the best use of forecast information. Faster markets: In the TradeWind study, the cost savings due to scheduling cross-border trades and generation intraday are dramatic. Utilities are beginning to look at more frequent commitment and dispatch schedules as a less expensive way to integrate more wind. PV: Little is known about the fast variability of largescale PV plants, but they do have the ability to ramp much more quickly than wind in partly cloudy, windy conditions. Data is needed to better characterize PV variability on different timescales and for various plant sizes. Modied load shapes: Demand response and electric (or plug-in hybrid electric) vehicles are technologies that have the potential to be deployed on a large scale and drastically alter current load shapes. Electric vehicle charging at night, in particular, is thought to be a grid-friendly technology that helps with nighttime trough lling to complement the daytime peak shaving that demand-side management often targets. Storage: The laymans intuitive answer to integration of variable generation is typically storage. However,

at reasonably high penetration levels in Denmark, Germany, and some U.S. states, wind power is successfully integrated without additional storage. With the higher penetration levels discussed in these and next-generation wind-integration studies, further analysis of storage will be needed at the different integration timescales. Stochastic planning and operating tools: Stochastic planning and operating tools and methods are needed to better incorporate the variability and uncertainty associated with the variable output of renewable resources. In conclusion, it seems that we can meet the challenge of integrating higher levels of wind power at a reasonable cost and with signicant net benets in operations. Recent studies across the United States and Europe show that this is more easily accommodated with faster, larger markets (or balancing-area cooperation) and more interconnection across regions.

For Further Reading

E. A. DeMeo, G. A. Jordan, C. Kalich, J. King, M. R. Milligan, C. Murley, B. Oakleaf, and M. J. Schuerger, Accomodating Winds Natural Behavior, IEEE Power Energy Mag. (Special Issue on Wind Power), vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 5967, Nov./Dec. 2007. M. L. Kaplan, J. W. Zack, V. C. Wong, and J. J. Tuccillo, Initial results from a mesoscale atmospheric simulation system and comparisons with an AVE-SESAME I data set, Monthly Weather Rev., vol. 11, no. 11, pp. 15641590, 1982. D. Lew. (2009). Western wind and solar integration study Web site [Online]. Available: http://westconnect.com /init_ wwis.php TradeWind. (2009). Integrating wind: Developing Europes power market for the large-scale integration of wind power [Online]. Available: http://www.trade-wind.eu/leadmin/documents/publications/Final_Report.pdf International Energy Agency. (2008). Empowering Variable Renewables [Online]. Available: www.iea.org/g8/2008/ Empowering_Variable_Renewables.pdf

Biographies
Dave Corbus is a senior engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Debbie Lew is a senior engineer at NREL. Gary Jordan is director of energy consulting for GE Energy on the WWSIS. Wilhelm Winters is the project manager for the European Wind Integration Study (EWIS). Frans Van Hull is technical advisor for EWEA (European Wind Energy Association). John Manobianco is director of research with AWS Truewind. Bob Zavadil is vice president of Enernex Corporation.
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november/december 2009

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IEEE power & energy magazine