21-05-2013, 04:52 PM
The Value of Wind Power
Introduction
The aim of a power plant in a power system is to supply the load in an economical, reliable
and environmental acceptable way. Different power plants can fulfill these requirements in
different ways. The aim of this paper is to describe the different requirements on a power
plant and how these requirements can be met with wind power.
In Section 2 the different values of a power plant will be described and in Section 3 these
values will be evaluated for wind power. In Section 2-3 the value is evaluated as the
decrease of total costs. In Sweden the power market is deregulated and in Section 4 the
value seen as a decrease of the costs for the market actor will be summarized.
The value of a power plant
Different power plants have different characteristic concerning how they can be controlled
in the power system. A common situation is that the value of a new power plant is
evaluated as the marginal value of the plant in an existing power system.
The differenttypes of values for the new power plant is then:
Operation cost value is the possibility of the new power plant to decrease the operation
costs in the existing power system. If a new power plant is added to the system, then this
power plant will supply energy to the system. This means that the energy production will
decrease in other power plants. The consequence is that the operation cost in these plants is
decreased.
Capacity credit treats the possibility of the new power plant to increase the reliability of
the power system. In the existing power system there is always a certain risk of capacity
deficit, the so-called Loss Of Load Probability, LOLP. This probability is normally very
low. When a capacity deficit occurs, some load has to be disconnected. If a new power
plant is added to this system, there is a certain chance that fewer customers have to be
disconnected since the installed capacity increases in the system. This implies that the
reliability increases in the system, thanks to the new power plant.