Analysis of wind penetration and network reliability through Monte Carlo simulation

Generating electricity from wind resources has many environmental and economic advantages over traditional fossil-fueled generation. As a result, there is little doubt that energy from wind will be a significant contribution to the electricity portfolio of the future. Due to the sensitivity of the network and the volatility of the wind resource, analysis of power system operations using expected wind generation is not representative of actual system operations. In order to account for this fundamental uncertainty in wind generation, a Monte Carlo simulation model is developed based on an Optimal Power Flow model, and tested on the IEEE 39-bus test system. The results of these simulations indicate that while the average cost of serving load decreases with increasing wind penetration, the reliability of the system is highly sensitive to the ability of other generators on the system to ramp production either up or down on very short timescales.