Effects of integrating wind power for representative load scenarios in a us electric power system: Operational costs and environmental impacts

Integrating wind energy requires careful operational and market practices. The effect of wind power production can only be calculated by comparing operational costs, Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP), and emission rates in two power integration scenarios: Added-Wind case and No Added-Wind case scenarios. This paper presents operational impacts of wind power for both scenarios applied to Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) US equivalent electric power system. We consider seasonal wind and load power patterns by simulating a 10-minute constrained economic dispatch optimization model (CEDOM) for three days in January, July and September. We observe that the effects of large scale wind power on system operations and emission reductions vary due to seasonal system load variations and consequent variations in dispatched power. Next, we study the effects of policies on the wind power plants revenues (taking into account prediction costs) in particular, the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed. It appears that the FERC policy would result in higher revenues to wind power producers.