Preliminary Estimate of Cost Savings in NPCC System with Wind Generation

.....................................................2 Introduction................................................2 Problem Statement....................................3 Electrical Model Example .........................3 Cost Savings..............................................3 Potential Decisions ...................................4 Conclusion and suggestions for future work. ...........................................................8 References .................................................8 Abstract This paper shows potential generation cost savings caused by integrating incremental MW capacity of wind power to Northeastern Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) US electric power system. The approach begins by applying the Basic Economic Dispatch (ED) to the existing grid. Preliminary potential decisions for the utilities and the market side for integrating and investing in wind energy market can be captured from the calculation that is shown in later section to calculate the breakeven installed MW wind capacity so that the total revenues cover the total fixed and variable costs for each incremental percentage levels mentioned above. This analysis takes into account the effective capacity of wind generation. The calculations are based on the average month’s capacity factors for each % wind level. The results show significant total generation cost reductions at 5%, 10% and 15% incremental wind power levels. Introduction The intent of this paper is to develop a preliminary cost savings estimates by integrating wind power into NPCC bulk power grid. In our analysis, we use a system representation of [1]. The economic dispatch problem is formulated based on an estimated average installed cost of $1500/200MW and an operation and maintenance cost of 10$/MWh as in [2]. We address the effect of increasing wind MW capacities in the total generation cost savings. Also we calculate a preliminary wind plant Break-Even size in which the total estimated revenues equals the total estimated costs to help for potential planning and expansion decisions to take place. Problem Statement The problem of minimizing the total generation cost is posed here as a basic economic dispatch optimization problem as follows: • Given the total system load L P in MW. • Given the available generated power Gi P in MW from power plants that are already ON where: iMAX i iMIN PG PG PG ≤ ≤ • Given an approximated linear cost function for each participating generator as: i i i i i B PG A PG C + = ) ( Where i A is the marginal cost for generator i , and i = 1,2,., N The basic ED is performed to decide how to schedule Gi P so that: