Optimising interconnected power systems using wind power predictions
Due to the increased unpredictability of wind power or grid instabilities, wind energy has not yet been widely promoted as a sustainable source for electricity supply. Particularly, the rapid introduction of large amounts of intermitting wind power production could result in economic and technical problems in the systems. For instance, in northern Europe during periods of strong winds grid system display increased instability. Urged by this, the WILMAR project developed a stochastic optimisation model of interconnected power systems in Germany and Nordic countries using wind power production forecasts as an input parameter. Based on specified regions where generation, demand and transmission of wind energy have been well-described, the model performs market analysis and provides electricity market prices from marginal system operation costs. Taking into consideration trading activities of different actors on different energy markets, namely four electricity markets and one market for heat, the model allows optimisation of the unit's commitment. An objective function allows the maximisation of the consumer and producer surplus, which results into the minimisation of the system's operation costs in the case of fixed electricity demands. By adopting a rolling planning approach and taking into account the calculation time factor, the model simplifies information arrival and decision-making by using a 3-hour step forward in time. This is one of the first large-scale power market models that deals with uncertainty in wind power production forecasts endogenously. This means that is allows users to make decisions by offering them uncertain wind power production predictions. Moreover, the operator uses the same model for handling both a day-ahead market and an intra-day market for regulating power. Research institutions, consultancy companies and organisations interested in the model's further development and its application for wind power integration analysis are sought.
