On the assessment and management of risk in wind farm distribution systems

Assessing and managing the risk associated with the performance of the distribution network of renewable energy projects by means of probabilistic methods could lead to significant risk exposure. Such probabilistic methods include, for example, those employed in the calculation of classical availability/reliability related performance indicators (such as SAIDI and SAIFI). This situation may be particularly crucial when predicting the availability of the distribution system associated with the Electrical Balance of Plant (EBoP) of wind farms. The concepts and results associated with a real-case system presented in this paper point out that risk assessments for distribution networks of renewable generation (using indicators such as EBoP Network Unavailability and its associated “shortfall”: the Expected Energy Generated but not Transferred onto the HV Grid) could be underestimated when probabilistic methods that are more suitable to largescale power system, are applied on the “small scale” distribution and grid access systems of wind farms.