Substitution potential of wind energy in Egypt

The amount of energy generated by conventional power plants is expected to decline in near future due to environmental concern and the possible penetration of renewable energy such as wind generation. Therefore, the evaluation of the substitution potential of wind energy is becoming an important task by generation planning of power systems. A new methodology for estimating the capacity credit due to wind generation is developed based on the convolution technique considering the statistical wind speed variations. Moreover, the economic impact of wind energy is assessed in the form of cost/benefit ratio to justify the substitution potential of such clean energy resource. The feasibility of the proposed approaches are illustrated using the planned 600 MW wind farm in Za’afarana, which would be integrated to the Egyptian unified power network.