Final report: Task 4a.2 20% wind scenario assessment of electric grid operational features

Conference · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2009

OSTI ID:990313

Toole, Gasper L ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory

Wind integration modeling in electricity generation capacity expansion models is important in that these models are often used to inform political or managerial decisions. Poor representation of wind technology leads to under-estimation of wind's contribution to future energy scenarios which may hamper growth of the industry. The NREL's Wind Energy Deployment System (WinDS) model provides the most detailed representation of geographically disperse renewable resources and the optimization of transmission expansion to access these resources. Because WinDS was selected as the primary modeling tool for the 20% Wind Energy by 2030 study, it is the ideal tool for supplemental studies of the transmission expansion results. However, as the wind industry grows and knowledge related to the wind resource and integration of wind energy into the electric system develops, the WinDS model must be continually improved through additional data and innovative algorithms to capture the primary effects of variable wind generation. The detailed representation of wind technology in the WinDS model can be used to provide improvements to the simplified representation of wind technology in other capacity expansion models. This task did not employ the WinDS model, but builds from it and its results. Task 4a.2 provides an assessment of the electric grid operational features of the 20% Wind scenario and was conducted using power flow models accepted by the utility industry. Tasks 2 provides information regarding the physical flow of electricity on the electric grid which is a critical aspect of infrastructure expansion scenarios. Expanding transmission infrastructure to access remote wind resource in a physically realizable way is essential to achieving 20% wind energy by 2030.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 990313
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-09-04060; LA-UR-09-4060
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
ALGORITHMS
CAPACITY
ELECTRICITY
FLOW MODELS
OPTIMIZATION
SIMULATION