Large scale integration of wind power – influence of geographical allocation

Journal article, 2011

This paper investigates the influence of geographical allocation of wind power generation in Northern Europe, assuming large scale integration of wind power. The work applies a linear cost optimization model of the heat and power sector with a 1-hour time resolution. The model minimizes the sum of running costs to meet the heat and power demand and the wind power and transmission investment costs. Wind data are taken from modelled wind speed data from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. The Nordic countries and Germany were divided into regions and the 200 sites with the highest yearly output were chosen to represent the region. The model gives the most favourable distribution of wind power between the regions. In addition, the paper provides an assessment of the effect of geographical distribution of wind power with respect to influence on the aggregated wind power production (only considering the wind power generation itself). The modelling results show that the largest investments in wind power are made in the windy region of Southern Norway. However, depending on the cost of transmission allocating wind power near large load centers in Germany may also be favourable. As for the assessment of distribution of wind power, the wind data gives that if the 400 best sites in Europe were used, this would result in a capacity factor of 38.5% and a lowest output of 2.5 % of rated power (applying 2009 wind data).