Analysis of a wind farm’s capacity value using a non-iterative method

The effective load carrying capability (ELCC) is considered the preferred metric to evaluate the capacity value of a wind farm when performing generation expansion studies. Unfortunately, the classical implementation of the ELCC concept requires substantial reliability modeling and a computationally-intensive iterative process. The non-iterative method developed as part of our previous work addresses these issues. In this work, a detailed application of the non-iterative method is presented to compute the ELCC of a wind farm in two case studies. From these case studies, we establish that the non-iterative method can be applied successfully whether or not wind generation is a part of the existing generation portfolio. Foremost, we demonstrate that the non-iterative method can be utilized effectively to compute ELCC estimates for various evaluation periods such as a particular month or peak hours period. Results from both case studies and all evaluation periods show that the non-iterative method provides excellent ELCC estimates with an average relative error of only 2.2% for the first case study and 1.4% for the second. Furthermore, the ELCC estimates are compared to the capacity factor approximation which is often used to estimate a wind farmpsilas ELCC. In these case studies, the capacity factor approach is shown to offer inaccurate ELCC estimates with average relative errors of 20.2% for the first case study and 14.1% for the second.