Analysis for grid connected wind power system in the arid region

In this paper, an investigation is made on large-scale operations of 95 MW per day wind energy system (WES) as a grid power generation. A comparison is drawn between a grid-connected WES and a standard grid operation focusing on environmental and economic impacts. Emissions and the renewable energy generation fraction (RF) of total energy consumption are calculated as the main environmental indicator. Costs including net present cost (NPC) and cost of energy (COE) are calculated for economic evaluation. To simulate the WES, the hourly mean wind speed datafrom Ain Salah and Adrar in the southern of Algeria are used as an example of a typical arid climate. It is found that the optimum results of WES show a 19% and 24% reduction of emissions including CO2, SO2 and NOx respectively for Ain Salah and Adrar. The RF of the optimized system is 19% and 24% respectively for Ain Salah and Adrar. It is also found that the reduced NPC and COE are only equal to about 81% and 76% of energy consumption from standard grid respectively for Ain Salah and Adrar.