Abstract

This paper proposes a method to estimate the contribution of wind farms to power system adequacy (their capacity value) based on Monte Carlo simulation in a unit-commitment model. The proposed method considers stochastic variables such as wind power generation and the forced outage of generating units, and is capable of evaluating the impact of operational constraints (such as transmission congestion, time-coupling constraints of thermal generating units, and unit commitment criteria) in the capacity value of wind. The proposed method is applied to a couple of future wind farms in the Chilean Central Interconnected System and the capacity value results are compared with those obtained by the method suggested by the IEEE-PES Task Force on the Capacity Value of Wind Power. Although both methods showed capable of properly capturing the influence of the correlation between load and wind generation, the proposed method could also capture the impact that transmission congestion and other operational aspects have on the capacity value of wind farms.