Detection and Statistics of Wind Power Ramps

Ramps events are a significant source of uncertainty in wind power generation. Developing statistical models from historical data for wind power ramps is important for designing intelligent distribution and market mechanisms for a future electric grid. This requires robust detection schemes for identifying wind ramps in data. In this paper, we propose an optimal detection technique for identifying wind ramps for large time series. The technique relies on defining a family of scoring functions associated with any rule for defining ramps on an interval of the time series. A dynamic programming recursion is then used to find all such ramp events. Identified wind ramps are used to propose a new stochastic framework to characterize wind ramps. Extensive statistical analysis is performed based on this framework, characterizing ramping duration and rates as well as other key features needed for evaluating the impact of wind ramps in the operation of the power system. In particular, evaluation of new ancillary services and wind ramp forecasting can benefit from the proposed approach.