Method for assessing system impact of increasing wind farm sizes above their maximum limits

Current methods for determining wind farm maximum size use conservative voltage stability approach based on maximum wind speed occurring simultaneously with peak loading conditions. Wind patterns at a wind farm site may never allow the wind farm to produce its maximum capacity during the hours of heavy loading conditions. In this paper, a new method is proposed to determine wind farm maximum size which incorporates voltage stability margins and wind patterns at the wind farm site into sizing a wind farm. It provides a method to increase wind farm maximum size with an option of curtailing wind generation under certain conditions based on voltage stability margins. The proposed method is applied to a wind farm in western Kansas power system. Results of applying the new method show that wind farm maximum size can be increased if the system is operated with wind curtailment control to maintain voltage stability.