A study on smoothing effect on output fluctuation of distributed wind power generation

Wind power generation in Japan has shown a marked increase in recent years. This increase has aroused growing concerns about the adverse effects of wind power generation on power system control, operation, and planning, because wind power output cannot be controlled and fluctuates much more than that of the conventional power plants. However, if wind power generators am distributed over a wide area, a "smoothing effect" an output fluctuation of distributed wind turbines could be expected because of the stochastic nature of wind. This paper examines the smoothing effect of output fluctuation of dispersed wind turbines. The remits reveal that the output of a single wind turbine fluctuates almost its rated power in ten minutes and little smoothing effect is expected in a wind farm scale (i.e., within sum kilometers) for a period of 10 minutes. On the other hand, a smoothing effect can be expected for a wider area in 100 minutes.