Optimal Wind Power Plant Bidding under Consideration of Storage

In this master thesis, a model is proposed to enable profitable market participation of wind power plants considering the availability of second-party owned energy storage. A novel concept of storage capacity reservations is presented using which the wind power producer hedges against wind outcomes which are unfavourable with respect to its day-ahead market bids. The idea that wind power producers need not to own storage devices is explored through decoupling of storage operation during actual energy production from the participation in day-ahead markets. Hence, the overall model is divided into two stages: day-ahead scheduling and intra-day operation. In the day-ahead scheduling stage, profit maximizing bids for the day-ahead market are prepared while in the intra-day operation stage, the storage device owner assists the wind power producer in tracking its day-ahead market bids through suitable storage scheduling and through participation in intraday adjustment markets. The day-ahead market bids are decided such that they are energy-neutral with respect to expected use of storage for imbalance mitigation. This allows the storage device owner to efficiently plan its operation schedule without worrying about overuse or under-utilization of storage capacity by the wind power producer. The model is validated by comparing it with the participation of wind power plants in electricity markets on its own. The case study shows that even after considering the costs of storage reservations and storage operation, the proposed model leads to maximization of profits for the wind power plants while eliminating the profit variability. Furthermore, the lost opportunity costs of having a joint wind-storage power plant is avoided through decoupling of the storage device from wind power producer. Mitigation of wind power imbalances can be seen as a secondary function for the storage device while it can still participate in the electricity markets on its own.