Evaluation of the reliability of wind power generation in a passive redundant system

Wind power is steadily gaining popularity on account of its eco-friendliness and low operating cost. However, the variability of wind is one aspect that needs to be worked on, as is the reliability of supply of wind power generation. In this paper an approach has been suggested to model the wind speed of Dhahran, KSA, and based on that model; evaluate the reliability of supply of a wind turbine generator. Statistical distributions are used to model the wind speed. The failure rate and several other reliability parameters and indices of the wind generation system are evaluated, both as a stand-alone system and in a passive redundant system with grid as backup, using Monte Carlo Simulations. A numerical case study of the method has been performed on the Roy Billinton Test System (RBTS) with simulations being carried out on MATLAB software.