A probabilistic costing method for the evaluation of the performance of grid-connected wind arrays

A description is given of a probabilistic method of predicting the performance of customer-owned grid-connected wind arrays based on statistical data of customer load and wind velocity. The statistics of the modified customer load, which is the initial customer load minus the wind generation are calculated. The modified load is allowed to take negative values in case the customer sells energy to the electric utility. Expectations of customer energy purchases from, or sales to, the electric utility and the net customer operating cost are calculated using the statistics of the modified load. The performance of the developed method is demonstrated with computational results. Some results useful in planning for wind energy generation are also presented