Improve wind energy penetration in an isolated power system by a stand-alone wind pumped storage hydropower plant

As is well-known, using pumped storage system in a power system is one of ways to raise the wind energy penetration. In former studies, the introduction of pumped storage system in power production systems aims mainly at peak clipping, valley filling of a grid and so on. In the present study, a relatively novel solution is introduced to enable wind-hydro-pumped storage station to generate power energy like a conventional generation unit so as to maximize wind energy penetration. With reasonable configuration, it can serve not only as conventional power source but also as peak regulation. When a pump be driven directly by wind turbine, the fluctuation and intermittent of wind energy may give rise to a stable problem on a stand-alone system consisting of wind turbines and pumps. The challenge and possible structure of the system are presented. Through a case study, the operation strategy of such system is then discussed.