Evaluation of the environmental impact of wind generation penetration

This paper presents a methodology to evaluate the environmental impact of wind generation penetration into electrical power system. A set of historical wind speed data is used to obtain different wind speed clusters which are used by Monte-Carlo Simulations to generate different daily wind speed profiles-scenarios. The Forward Selection algorithm is used to obtain a reduced set of scenarios. These reduced scenarios are then incorporated into a unit commitment model that analyzes the impact of wind generation penetration on the operation of conventional plants and on the resulting total system emissions. The solution of the unit commitment model is studied for different cost functions including the minimization of the total system emission. The relationship between changing the emission caps and the penetration level of wind energy is also investigated.