We introduce and solve two variants of a biobjective optimization model to reduce the negative impact of wind variability on the power system by strategically locating wind farms. The first model variant considers average changes in wind power over time; the second captures extreme fluctuations in wind power. A complementary set of wind sites is selected with the aim of minimizing both residual demand and the variability in residual demand. Because exact optimization is computationally intensive, we develop two heuristics-forward and backward greedy algorithms-to find approximate solutions. The results are compared with the exact optimization results for a well-selected subset of the data as well as to the results from selecting sites based on average wind alone. The two models are solved using demand data and potential wind sites for the Southwest Power Pool. Though both objectives can be improved by adding more sites, for a fixed number of sites, minimizing residual demand and variability in residual demand are competing objectives. We find an approximate efficient frontier to compare trade-offs between the two objectives. We also vary the parameter in the heuristic that controls how the two objectives are prioritized. For the case study, the backward greedy algorithm is more effective at reducing the wind power variability than the forward greedy algorithm.Furthermore, using the backward algorithm for the full dataset is more effective than solving the exact optimization on a subset of the data when the results are evaluated using the full dataset. KEYWORDS multiobjective optimization, siting, variability reduction
INTRODUCTIONWind is widely recognized as an important resource for a sustainable energy future. In the United States, wind power accounted for 4.7% of electricity generation in 2015 and was the second most used renewable energy resource after hydropower. 1 As many countries seek to decrease their reliance on fossil fuels, wind power will become increasingly important.A well-known challenge to integrating wind power into power systems is the uncontrollability and variability of wind. Increased reliance on wind power makes power balance more difficult. To ensure system reliability, generators that can ramp up and down quickly are required to respond to fluctuations in wind power. When wind variability is high, some of these systems may be left on to meet reserve requirements, potentially negating the benefit of wind power. In this research, we compare strategies for selecting wind farm locations during the capacity planning stage of power system planning so as to minimize the burden of wind variability on the rest of the power generation system.We use residual demand to indirectly measure the impact from wind power on the rest of the power generation system. We seek to minimize both residual demand and the variability in residual demand, analyzing two variants of the variability objective in order to consider both average variability over time and sudden fluctuations in wind power. We first solve the ...