Transmission Investment and Pricing in Systems with Significant Penetration of Wind Generation

In this paper we demonstrated that wind generation tends to drive less transmission investment than conventional generation. Two transmission planning approaches are analyzed in this paper focusing on the security and economics as being key drivers for investing in transmission. We demonstrated that it will not be appropriate to treat wind power as conventional generation in security assessments, as wind is a predominantly an energy source with relatively low capacity value. We also show that wind and conventional generation should share transmission capacity and hence avoid unnecessary and non optimal transmission network reinforcements. However, current approach to access and pricing does not support this efficient operation of the system.