An analytical method for constructing a probabilistic model of a wind farm

This paper introduces a new method to model the output power of wind farms in reliability evaluation. The proposed model is presented in terms of capacity outage probability table (COPT) considering the mechanical failure of wind turbine generators (WTG) and the correlation between the outputs of turbines on the same farm. Normal convolution methods are not applicable because the correlation between the turbines. Based on the proposed model, the COPT of wind farm has been constructed and applied on the IEEE RTS-79 to calculate the well known reliability indices. Furthermore, a comparison of the reliability indices with and without considering the mechanical failures of WTG is shown. The results indicate the importance of inclusion WTG mechanical availability in estimating reliability of wind power. The results were validated using Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed model reduces the complexity of using analytical methods, and provides accuracy for the estimation of reliability indices.