Capacity credit for renewable energy resources

The paper addresses the problem of computing the capacity credit for renewable energy resources. Wind, solar, and mini-hydro resources are often considered as energy resources with a negligible capacity value. The rationale is that one cannot depend on those resources to meet the load demand. However, one can depend on them to a certain extent. Hence, their capacity credit is nonzero. The paper reviews the literature on the subject, proposes a procedure to compute the capacity credit, and presents numerical results. The procedure is probabilistic, but uses simulation for the computation of complex distribution functions such as residual demand distribution and the resource´s power distribution function. Numerical results are shown, including the resource capacity credit as a function of resource installed capacity. Namely, it is shown that the capacity credit decreases (in percent of the resource´s installed capacity) as the installed capacity increases