See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/224716692

Wind Based Distributed Generation; Uncertainties and Planning Obstacles

Conference Paper · July 2007

DOI: 10.1109/PES.2007.385800 · Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS
4 61

2 authors, including:

Ehab El-Saadany
University of Waterloo
413 PUBLICATIONS   12,450 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Create new project "uGrid control" View project

Short Term Load Forecasting View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Ehab El-Saadany on 03 December 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.


Wind Based Distributed Generation;
Uncertainties and Planning Obstacles
Y.M.Attwa, Student member, IEEE, and E.F. El-Saadany, Senior member, IEEE
Abstract— As more wind energy is connected to utility systems, it
becomes important to understand and manage the impact of wind
generation on system operations. Recent studies and simulations
provide a better understanding of these impacts, and with this
knowledge, progress is now being made in developing the tools and
methods to minimize costs and operate reliably with higher levels
of wind generation and lower level of uncertainty. In order to
reduce the uncertainty in the wind generation, and facilitate the
introduction of wind energy in the utility system as power capacity
instead of energy source, this paper proposes a novel integrated
wind DG with energy storage system. Rayleigh probability density
function is used to model the wind speed during each month in the
year, from which the average power and capacity factor can be
estimated, which is an indication of the uncertainty of the system.
Depending on this information during the year, the appropriate
energy storage system can be selected.
Key words—wind energy, uncertainty, distributed generation,
storage system
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid consumption of fuel resources in past decades and the
growing interest in environment protection have been
encouraging research and development of alternative methods
for electricity generation. Wind energy arises as one of the most
promising clean energy resources over other clean sources such
as photovoltaic and fuel cells. Currently wind power is
accounted for 1.2% of the electricity generation in Canada [1],
with an annual growth rate of 35% from (2000-2005). This
growth rate is increased in 2006 to reach 54% with total
installed capacity of 1218 MW as shown in Fig. 1.
Wind energy systems are currently used around the globe in
two main configurations:
• Stand-alone or autonomous systems, and
• Utility or grid-connected systems.
Stand-alone systems directly supply electricity to consumers in
remote areas and eliminate the need for extensive transmission
lines from a utility. However, as wind is an ever-changing
energy source, power generation is not always available in
stand-alone systems. Therefore, interaction with a utility is
required in most cases to ensure continuous power supply.
Another advantage arises since excess electricity can be sold to
the grid. Utility-connected systems thus guarantee a backup
energy source in situations where wind availability is
Y.M. Attwa and E.F. El-Saadany, are with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (e-
mail:ymoustaf @uwaterloo.ca).
1-4244-1298-6/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE.
1
insufficient. Current issues in the power industry such as
deregulation and power quality provide an opportunity for
independent electricity generation at reasonable costs which can
be attained using wind energy systems. The introduction of wind
energy into conventional utilities creates new problems for
power engineers concerned with the high uncertainty in the
wind power production in which deterministic techniques can
not be used to take the right decision while studying the impact
of wind energy utility system, and statistical techniques should
developed and applied to aid solving the uncertainty associated
with wind energy generation.
1400
1200
1000
800
MW
600
400
200
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Fig. 1. Annual growth in wind energy in Canada
Previous work were done in estimating the uncertainty of
wind energy or studying the impact of wind energy uncertainty
when treated as distributed generator on the system planning,
reliability, and efficiency. In [2-3], the authors used simple wind
speed distribution which is parameterized solely by the
arithmetic mean wind speed for assessment of wind power
potential of a site. The authors in [4] provided a detailed
analytical method using arithmetic mean, root mean, and cubic
mean of wind velocity speed to estimate the annual average
output power of wind turbines. The simulation of a wind energy
conversion system in [5] provided accurate current and voltage
measurements as compared with a real model. While the work
presented in [6] provided a stochastic model for grid-connected
wind energy conversion system based on mathematical studies
of stochastic processes. In [7] a three step procedure, based on
Genetic Algorithm and decision theory, to establish the best
distributed generation sitting and sizing considering the
uncertainty in the produced power of wind DG was presented.
The work in this paper proposes an integrated wind DG with
energy storage system. The main goal of this integrated system
is to minimize the uncertainty in the wind output power
production, which in turns facilitates the introduction of wind
DG in the utility grid as power capacity not as energy source.
 2

This proposed technique is deemed viable especially after the When the shape index k equals to 2, which is the most realistic
great progress in the energy storage system, i.e. (VRB energy for a likely wind turbine, the pdf is called Rayliegh probability
storage system) DIFINE VRB[8]. In order to accomplish this density function:
task, uncertainty of the wind DG is estimated by using Rayleigh
probability density function in order to model the behavior of 2v ⎡ v ⎤
wind speed each month in the year. Hence the average power f (v ) = ( 2
) exp ⎢− ( ) 2 ⎥ Rayliegh pdf (5)
output during each month can be calculated, and from which the c ⎣ c ⎦
total average output power during the year can be calculated. If the mean value of the wind speed for a site is known, then the
Further, by comparing the average power of each month with scaling index c can be calculated as in (6),(7).
the annual average power, the proper selection of the storage
∞ ∞
size can be determined. 2v 2 ⎡ v ⎤ π
v m = ∫ v. f (v)dv = ∫ ( 2
) exp ⎢− ( ) 2 ⎥dv = c
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION 0 0 c ⎣ c ⎦ 2
The following subsections explain the statistical method used to (6)
model and estimate the average power of the wind DG c ≈ 1.128vm (7)

A. Mean and Standard Deviation. 0.08

Monthly mean and standard deviation of collected data can be 0.07

Area under curve=1
calculated using the following formulas:
0.06
n n

∑ fi.vi ∑ fi(v i − vm ) 2 0.05

vm = i =1
n
σ= i =1
n
(1) Area=probility that the
wind between v1 and v2

∑f ∑f
f(v )
0.04
i i
i =1 i =1 0.03

where v m is the mean speed, n is the number of wind speed

0.02
data recorded, v is the actual speed, f is the speed frequency,
and σ is the standard deviation. 0.01

v1 v2
0
B. Wind power probability Density Function. wind speed

The wind speed frequency curve is modeled by a continuous Fig.2. Probability density function.
function, called probability density function (pdf). The feature
of this pdf as shown in Fig. 2, is that the area under the curve is 0.25

equal to unity, and the area under the curve between any two
wind speeds equal to the probability that the wind is between
0.2 k=3
those two speeds, as shown in the following equation
v2

probability (v1 ≤ v ≤ v 2 ) = ∫ f (v )dv

k=1
(2) 0.15
Probability

v1 k=2
∞
probability (0 ≤ v ≤ ∞) = ∫ f (v )dv = 1 (3) 0.1

0
C. Weibull and Rayleigh Probability Density Functions 0.05

A very good expression that is often recommended to model the

behavior of the wind speed is Weibull probability density
0
function [9]: 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
W ind speed (m/s)

Fig. 3. Weibull probability density function with different values of shape index k.
k v k −1 ⎡ v ⎤
f (v ) = ( ) exp ⎢− ( ) k ⎥ Weibull pdf (4)
c c ⎣ c ⎦ D. Estimating the Capacity Factor
Capacity factor is defined as the ratio of average output power
where k is the shape index, while c is the scale index. As the
over the rated output power.
shape index k changes, the shape of the pdf will change
Pave
accordingly as shown in Fig. 3. CF = (8)
Prated
 3

In order to calculate the rated and average power output of wind 0.14

turbine the following date are required: January

February
• The pdf of the wind speed during the period of interest.
0.12
March

• The type of turbine, which provides the relationship 0.1

between the wind speed and the output power of such 0.08
turbine as shown in [4].

f(v)
0.06

0.04

0.02

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
W ind speed

Pr
a
0.16

April
0.14 May
June
0.12

0.1
Vci Vr V co

f(v)
0.08
Fig. 4. Typical wind turbine output power versus wind speed
0.06

III. ANALITICAL CALCULATIONS 0.04

In this section monthly pdfs are generated for wind speed in 0.02

Northwestern as shown in Fig. 5. The historical data about the 0

0 5 10 15 20 25 30
monthly wind speed means and maximum values are collected W ind speed

from Madison weather station as shown in Table I. After b

calculating the wind pdfs, capacity factor will be estimated for 0.25
July
different types of wind turbines with different charactarestics as August
September
shown in Table II In order to select the optimum turbine that 0.2

match the given site.

0.15

TABLE I
f(v)

MONTHLY MEANS AND MAXIMUM WIND SPEED IN NORTHWESTERN 0.1

Month Mean wind speed Max wind speed

(m/s) (m/s) 0.05

Jan 6.97 17.056

Feb 5.93 18.78 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Mar 6.45 23.23 W ind speed

Apr 6.62 18.768 c

May 6.25 17.216 0.16

Jun 4.81 13.504 0.14

October
November
Jul 4.34 14.23 December

0.12
Aug 4.95 22.704
Sep 3.23 10.049 0.1

Oct 5.09 22.245

f(v)

0.08

Nov 5.17 15.36 0.06

Dec 6.42 20.48
0.04

Table II 0.02

WIND TURBINE INFORMATION 0

0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Features Turb #1 Turb #2 Turb #3 Turb #4 W ind speed

Rated power 850 KW 1.65MW 2 MW 3 MW d

Speed (m/s) Fig. 5. Rayleigh probability density functions for wind speed in Northwestern.
Cut in 4 3.5 4 4
Rated 16 13 15 15 After estimating monthly pdfs of the wind speed, and with the
Cut out 25 24 25 25 aid of the relationship between the wind speed and the output
power for each turbine, the monthly and annual average output
power for those turbines can be calculated as shown in table III.
 4

TABLE III energy capture. Turbine number 2 in this case study is the
THE MONTHLY AND ANNUAL AVERAGE OUTPUT POWER (KW) FOR
chosen candidate as shown from Fig. 6.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF WIND TURBINES
Turbine Turbine Turbine
IV. ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM DESIGN
1 Turbine2 3 4
Jan 338 831 854 1280 In order to determine the capacity of the appropriate energy
Feb 255 620 639 960 storage system that will be installed with the wind DG to level
the output power and facilitate the implementation of such DG
Mar 284 709 727 1090
in planning problems as a power capacity, which means a
Apr 300 748 776 1163 constant output power DG, two parameters should be
May 279 689 706 1059 calculated, namely, the maximum duration for the energy
Jun 175 420 420 630 storage in which it discharges and The level of output power.
Jul 139 350 355 532
Aug 101 265 267 396
Sep 95 390 405 607 0.4 Turbine2
0.35
Oct 193 493 496 744 Turbine3 Turbine4

Capacity factor
0.3 Turbine1
Nov 203 537 550 823 0.25
Dec 302 727 759 1138 0.2
564.916 0.15
Annual 222 7 579.5 868.5 0.1
0.05
The Monthly capacity factors for those turbines, computed 0
using the mathematical formulation (8), are shown in Table IV. 1 2 3 4

TABLE IV
MONTHLY CAPACITY FACTORS
Fig. 6. Annual capacity factors.
Turbine
Turbine1 Turbine2 3 Turbine4 A. The maximum duration for the energy storage in which it
0.39764 0.50363 0.42666 discharges.
Jan 7 6 0.427 7 This is a time based parameter which depends mainly on the
0.37575 annual wind speed pattern in the site under study. The analysis
Feb 0.3 8 0.3195 0.32 here will focus on the month that has the minimum average
0.33411 0.42969 0.36333 power, which is August as shown in table IV. This month will
Mar 8 7 0.3635 3 be considered as the worst case scenario, and the period of
0.35294 0.45333 0.38766 discharge during this month will be considered as the longest
Apr 1 3 0.388 7 period in which the energy storage system will be designed. In
0.32823 0.41757 order to estimate this period, historical data collected from
May 5 6 0.353 0.353 Madison weather station for years 2000 to 2005 is considered.
0.20588 0.25454 By calculating the real time output power during this month, it
Jun 2 5 0.21 0.21 was found that this period is about 90 hours as shown in Fig. 7.
0.16352 0.21212 0.17733 B. The level of output power.
Jul 9 1 0.1775 3
0.11882 0.16060 This parameter is dependant mainly on the profile of the
Aug 4 6 0.1335 0.132 monthly average output power of the wind DG, as shown in Fig.
0.11176 0.23636 0.20233 8. Due to the great difference between the average power in the
winter and summer, two scenarios were proposed.
Sep 5 4 0.2025 3
• Work on the annual average output power of the wind DG.
0.22705 0.29878
The disadvantage of this scenario is its high uncertainty,
Oct 9 8 0.248 0.248
because in the winter months there will be an excess in the
0.23882 0.32545 0.27433
output, while there will be a shortage in output power
Nov 4 5 0.275 3
during summer months, thus it is recommended to reject
0.35529 0.44060 0.37933 this scenario from the planning point of view.
Dec 4 6 0.3795 3
• Work on the minimum monthly average output power. The
disadvantage of this scenario is the great waste of power
The annual capacity factors are then calculated. The wind
during the winter months, thus it is recommended to reject
turbine that has the highest capacity factor will be considered
this scenario from the economic point of view.
the best matched turbine to the site from the point of view of
The final conclusion is that the integrated wind DG with energy
storage system can facilitate the implementation of wind DG as
 5

power capacity in the planning problem if and only if the
following two conditions are satisfied for the site under study.
1. Small periods of discharge of the energy storage
system, which will have a great impact on reducing the
size of the storage, and in turn the cost of it.
2. Small difference between the monthly average output
power, which will have a great impact on reducing the
uncertainty of output power if the first scenario is used
in planning, or reducing the waste of power if the
second scenario is used in planning.
For the sites that cannot satisfy the above two conditions such
as the site under study in this paper, alternative solutions can
be used such as constructing a hybrid system consisting of the
wind DG with another renewable source of energy such as
photo voltaic (PV) in order to compensate the lack of output
power in the summer months. Nevertheless, it has to be
mentioned here that the second source to be integrated to the
wind DG doesn’t have to be renewable and this might help in
reducing the degree of uncertainty associated with the
planning process.
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
KW
are used to select the best turbine that match with the site under
study; a selection that is mainly dependant on the highest
capacity factor.
This paper also showed that using integrated wind DG with
energy storage system to facilitate the implementation of wind
DG as a power capacity in the planning problem is not
considered as a favorable solution from both planning and
economic point of view, in case of sites that have long periods
of discharge and a great difference between the monthly average
output powers. However, it might be considered as a viable
solution for sites characterized by small periods of discharge
and small difference between the monthly average output
powers. In case of systems characterized long periods of
discharge, using hybrid systems, by utilizing other type of
generation, to level the monthly average output profile may be a
better solution.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] Canadian Wind Energy Association (www.canwea.ca).
[2] I. Gary, Johnson, “Economic Design of Wind Electric systems”, IEEE
Trans. on Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-97, No.2, March/April
1978, pp. 854- 561.
[3] M. Ziyad. Salameh, I. Safari, “Optimum Windmill- Site Matching”, IEEE
Transactions on Energy Conversion, Vo1.7, No.4, Dec. 1992, pp, 669-676.
[4] S.H.Jangamshetti, V.G. Rau, “Site matching of wind turbine generators: a
case study”, IEEE Trans. on Energy Conversion, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 1537–
1543, Dec. 1999.
[5] B. S. Borowy, and Z. M. Salameh, “Dynamic response of a stand-alone

800
wind energy conversion system with battery storage to a wind gust”, IEEE
600 Trans. on Energy Conversion, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 73–78, Mar. 1997.
[6] A. G. Bakirtzis, P. S. Dokopoulos, E. S. Gavanidou, and M. A. Ketselides,
400
Monthly average “A probabilistic costing method for the evaluation of the performance of
200 grid-connected wind arrays,” IEEE Trans. on Energy Conversion, vol. 4,
no. 1, pp. 34–40, Mar. 1989.
0
[7] G. Carpinelli, G. Celli, F. Pilo, and A. Russo, “Distributed Generation
300 310 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
Sitting and Sizing under Uncertainty”, 2001 IEEE Porto Power Tech
Hour
Conference
Fig. 7. Maximum period of discharge. [8] www.vrbpower.com
[9] IEC 614001, Wind turbine conversion systems, Prentice Hall, 1990.
900
Jan
800 A pr
M ar Dec
M ay
700 VI. BIOGRAPHIES
Feb
600 Yasser M. Attwa (S’06) was born in Alexandria, Egypt,
A nnual average
Oct
in 1975. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in
500 Nov
electrical engineering from Alexandria University,
KW

Jun
400
Sep Alexandria, Egypt in 1998, and 2004 respectively. He is
Jul
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the Department of
300 Aug Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. His research interests
200
are distribution system planning, power quality,
100 reliability, and distributed generation.

0
Ehab F. El-Saadany (SM’05) was born in Cairo, Egypt,
in 1964. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in
Fig. 8. Monthly and annual average output power of turbine 2. electrical engineering from Ain Shams University, Cairo,
Egypt, in 1986 and 1990, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the University of
V. CONCLUSION Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 1998. Currently, he
Detailed analytical study to calculate the monthly average is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo. His
output power, annual average output power, and capacity factor research interests are distribution system control and
of wind speed in northernwest using data from Madison weather operation, power quality, distributed generation, power
station is presented. Wind speeds are modeled using Rayleigh electronics, digital signal processing applications to power systems, and
probability density function, and the relation between the output mechatronics.
power and the wind speed for different types of wind turbines

View publication stats