Analysis of Energy Curtailment and Capacity Overinstallation to Maximize Wind Turbine Profit Considering Electricity Price-Wind Correlation

Journal article, 2017

This paper proposes a strategy of using wind energy curtailment and capacity overinstallation to increase the profit of wind turbine (WT) installations in a local grid, accounting for the correlation between the local wind power production and system electricity price. It is demonstrated that the market value of a local wind power production in Denmark would be overestimated by 11% if the average electricity price is used without considering the price-wind correlation. A first-order relation is developed to quantify the correlation between the electricity price and local-wind power production to evaluate the market value and the expected revenue of the wind power. Furthermore, in the analyzed cases of a local WT installation, compared to the case with no curtailment, the profits are increased by up to 46% through 29% of energy curtailment and 113% of capacity overinstallation, when the slope of the price-wind relation is 100 (sic)/MWh. It is also verified that the approximated analytical solutions give accurate results of the optimal curtailment level.