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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy
Wind power design in isolated energy systems: Impacts of daily wind patterns
K. Suomalainen a,, C. Silva a, P. Ferro a, S. Connors b
a
b
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA
h i g h l i g h t s
" We apply a methodology for synthetic wind speed data including daily wind patterns.
" We study the impact of daily wind patterns on the energy system of two islands.
" We compare trade-offs between surplus energy and renewables penetration rate.
" We discover that placement of turbines can be used to minimise surplus energy.
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 7 February 2012
Received in revised form 7 June 2012
Accepted 8 June 2012
Available online 21 July 2012
Keywords:
High wind penetration
Isolated energy systems
Daily wind patterns
a b s t r a c t
Increasing levels of intermittent renewables, especially wind power, in energy systems require accurate
temporal characterisation of the resources availability at seasonal, daily and hourly scales. This is crucial
for isolated energy systems, where increasing wind power penetration is limited due to costly backup
power generation requirements. In the case studies presented in this paper, the energy systems of two
islands are simulated using a new methodology for synthetic wind speed scenarios including daily wind
patterns. A trade-off analysis was conducted in terms of surplus wind power and renewables penetration
rate, with the objective of supplying decision support on wind turbine placement. Results show that there
may be a signicant advantage in locating future wind parks on sites where wind speed patterns better
match electricity demand patters, rather than just choosing a site with the highest mean wind speed, but
only if the annual mean wind speed is still sufciently high to make the investment economically
feasible.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The Azores archipelago, an autonomous region of Portugal, has a
long history of using renewable energy to satisfy its energy needs.
The rst source of electricity on the islands was a hydro power station built in 1899 [1]. Also, the rst wind park of Portugal, consisting
of nine 30 kW turbines, was installed in the Azores in 1988 [2]. In
2010 wind power accounted for 4% of the Azores total electricity demand, whereas with current hydro and geothermal power the share
of renewable sources rises to 28% [3]. The goal of the regional government is to increase renewables penetration in the archipelago
to reach 75% of total electricity demand by 2018 [4] and consequently wind power is likely to play an important role also in the
future electricity mix of the archipelago.
A key technical challenge in reaching such ambitious renewables penetration targets is the management of surpluses and
shortages of intermittent energy resources such as the wind, while
securing the quality of supply. For example by combining building
and transportation end-uses, a coherent solution for integrating
high levels of wind power is possible, even without centralised
storage [5]. However, for detailed economic evaluation, it is fundamental to accurately characterise the wind energy resource in
terms of wind power availability and the timing and scale of surpluses and shortages before the feasibility of options such as demand response, smart grids and electric vehicles can be evaluated.
Suomalainen et al. [6] studied the impact of daily wind patterns
on energy systems with high wind penetration and concluded that
daily wind patterns can have a signicant impact on the timing of
energy surpluses and shortages along the day. In the energy
systems analysis presented in this paper, the trade-offs between
fuel use and surplus energy resulting from the different wind characteristics of different locations on two islands, are evaluated. A
comparison is made with scenarios of various installed capacities
of wind power at a coastal and a mid-island location on both
534
islands, and a common offshore location. This paper also demonstrates the impact that daily wind speed patterns can have on results from energy systems planning tools and the error resulting
from neglecting these patterns in locations where these patterns
are frequently present.
The following section gives a background to wind power in
isolated energy systems. Section 3 presents the case study and
summarises the methodology used for generating synthetic wind
speed scenarios with daily patterns. Section 4 presents the results
of applying these scenarios to the case studies followed by a
discussion and conclusions in Section 5.
2. Wind power in isolated energy systems
In this section a quick glance is given to the existing studies of
wind power in isolated energy systems and some of the lessons
learned. Also some of the needs in wind power characterisation
for isolated systems and the potential benets of a more detailed
assessment of daily variability of the wind resource are identied.
2.1. Wind variability and characteristics in isolated energy systems
Numerous studies and cases of isolated energy systems with
wind power have been documented [7,8]. In a wind energy potential assessment study Bekele and Palm [9] identied a diurnal effect of afternoon winds in their wind data from Ethiopia. In
terms of wind energy availability this becomes relevant especially
in climates where electricity demand peaks in the afternoons, e.g.
due to increased air-conditioning.
Wind characteristics in Saudi Arabia were identied for ve
geographically and climatologically different locations by Al-Abbadi [10]. Daily, monthly and frequency proles of the wind speed
showed that two sites, Dhulum and Arar, have higher wind energy
potential than the other sites due to the higher annual mean wind
speeds. However, at the coastal sites, although the annual mean
wind speed is lower than at Dhulum and Arar, the wind speed increases signicantly during afternoon hours. They concluded that
grid-connected wind power at these sites provides an advantage
in satisfying demand during peak hours.
Bowen et al. [11] studied the performance of an isolated winddiesel system for one household. They report that while almost a
fth of the wind power had to be dumped to water heating, over
one quarter of total electricity supply still came from diesel. The
winds generally reached maximum in the mid afternoon showing
a strong inuence of the coastal sea breeze especially in the summer months. The household electrical load showed regular peaks
around lunchtime and early evening, most activity ceased by
22:30 and resumed again in the early morning. They conclude that
the fact that the primary energy source, the wind, and the load
have similar proles across a typical day was a very positive feature and an excellent characteristic for a remote wind energy
power system. They agreed with Ineld and Scotney [12] saying
that even a small amount of energy storage can have a signicant
impact on the system performance. In addition, signicant
improvements in system efciency could be achieved if the energy
fed into the batteries was minimised by arranging the energy demand timing to t generation more closely.
In a more detailed study on the effects of temporal wind patterns
on the power system Fripp and Wiser [13] concluded that temporal
patterns have substantial impact on the capacity factor of wind
parks during peak hours. Locations that were best correlated with
demand peak periods produced 3040% more power during the
top 10% peak hours than on the annual average. The worst correlated
sites produced 3060% less power than on average. The relationship
between wind resource patterns and electricity demand was also
studied by Sinden [14]; it was shown that during peak demand periods the capacity factor of wind power in the UK was approximately
30% higher than on average, in this case showing a positive correlation between temporal wind patterns and demand.
For many island energy systems, due to a typically high dependence on imported fuels, increasing the penetration of local renewable energy sources to the energy mix has become an objective and
a challenge. Chen et al. [15] looked at several islands with various
renewable energy resources, including wind, and concluded that
the deployment of renewable energy in islands is a particularly
interesting opportunity for testing new technologies, in circumstances where conventional technologies are costly, and new solutions are more efcient.
Also Duc et al. [16] has conducted a number of case studies on
increasing renewables penetration on islands and concludes that
by adding a suitable storage solution it is possible to signicantly increase the penetration of local energy resources, and thus increase
security of supply and decrease dependence on imported fuels.
What remains unanswered is the question of optimising the energy
system design for islands with signicant wind resources, and this
requires including daily wind patterns in the resource
characterisation.
It is clear that daily wind patterns are frequently found in both
general climatic studies as well as in wind resource characterisation studies for energy systems modelling purposes. However, daily wind patterns are frequently omitted in energy system studies,
including studies with high wind penetration levels in relatively
small energy systems, such as islands. For example Katsaprakakis
et al. [17] conducted a study on a wind powered pumped hydro
storage system for an isolated power system, using wind speed
measurements for dimensioning and siting the wind park and estimating the annual electricity production. No daily wind patterns or
alternative locations were evaluated. In fact, due to the uncertainty
of the wind power availability the system was designed to not allow the wind power enter directly into the grid at any time. This is
one example of where including daily wind patterns, likely to occur
on islands, could give valuable additional information on the availability of wind power during peak demand hours. Thus, a higher
amount of the thermal production could possibly be offset directly
with wind power and possibly a smaller reservoir could be constructed for the pumped hydro station, if the daily wind patterns
could be characterised.
According to Zhou et al. [18], who reviewed the current status
of research on optimum sizing of stand-alone hybrid solarwind
power generation systems, unavailable meteorological wind speed
data is typically obtained by synthetically generating data from
monthly average values. This paper provides an example of a
methodology to generate such wind speed data but including daily
patterns, giving thus a higher level of characterisation of the wind
resource.
Khan and Iqbal [19] analysed a small wind-hydrogen standalone hybrid energy system noted that site specic resource and
load variations, and optimum sizing issues contribute to a challenge in such system development. The presented methodology
of the current paper supports the next step of such studies where
local specic dynamics between the wind resource variation and
power demand must be addressed. Whereas their wind model consisting of the sum of a mean term and a noise term is sufcient for
the time-span of their study, a higher level of variations needs to be
considered for energy systems modelling purposes, i.e. including
hourly, daily, seasonal and annual variations.
Kaldellis et al. [20] developed a stochastic model for estimating
the wind energy contribution in remote island electrical networks.
They characterise the wind resource by a wind speed probability
distribution and conclude that wind energy cannot play a key role
in solving the electrication issues in many Greek island regions
535
536
Table 1
Considered scenarios for installed wind capacity (kW) in different locations on the two islands. Offshore wind is considered for Faial and Pico separately for method verication
purposes only and included in the results only in scenarios that assume a grid-connection between the two islands.
kW
Hydro, existing
Wind, existing
Faial
320
1800
0 330
1 330
2 330
3 330
6 330
10 330
0 330
1 330
2 330
3 330
6 330
10 330
0
(1 2000)
1800
0 330
1 330
2 330
4 330
6 330
10 330
0 330
1 330
2 330
4 330
6 330
10 330
0
(1 2000)
1800
0 330
3 330
6 330
10 330
0 330
2 330
4 330
10 330
0 330
3 330
6 330
10 330
0 330
2 330
4 330
10 330
0
1 2000
Pico
320
1800
Table 2
Growth rate scenarios.
GWh
2010
2018
1%
2018
3%
Faial
Pico
Faial & Pico
53.9
39.5
93.4
58.4
42.7
101.1
68.3
50.0
118.3
Peak days
1. Days with maximum
and 06:00.
2. Days with maximum
and 12:00.
3. Days with maximum
and 18:00.
4. Days with maximum
and 24:00.
A probability distribution matrix is determined for each location based on the identied daily patterns and the mean wind
speed of each day. This matrix shows the probability distribution
for day type as a function of daily mean wind speed. Fig. 1 shows
these matrices as determined from the historical data for the ve
locations. The coastal locations on both islands show a clear diurnal effect of afternoon winds, day type 4, on days with low mean
wind speeds. However, as the daily mean wind speed increases
no peak days, day type 1, become the most probable day type.
In the mid-island locations the diurnal effect is not quite that
clear. On Faial there is a tendency to have afternoon winds on days
with low mean wind speeds, but for example on days with a mean
wind speed between 5 and 15 m/s, there is no signicant difference
in their probabilities. At Picos mid-island location there is no evidence of an afternoon wind effect. On days with the lowest mean
wind speed, no peak days are most probable, but at other daily
mean wind speeds all day types are occur at similar frequency.
In the offshore location, at low mean wind speeds, day types 2
and 5, i.e. decreasing or increasing wind speed throughout the day,
are most common whereas no peak days become common with
higher daily mean wind speeds. In addition, day types 3 and 4,
peaking in the morning and afternoon, respectively, are least frequent at the offshore location.
From these matrices a day type is sampled for each day of the
year. A reference day for each day type is scaled to the mean wind
speed of the day. An AR-model is used to add hourly variability to
the scaled reference days. For methodological details on the generation of the wind speed scenarios please see [6].
4. Trade-off analysis for different wind power scenarios
In this section the impacts of wind turbine placement, each site
option having a different wind regime, are studied through a trade-
537
Pico, coastal
Probability
Probability
Faial, coastal
0.5
0
12
34
Day type
10
0.5
0
12
20
15
Daily mean
[m/s]
Day type
0.5
Day type
34
10
10
20
15
Daily mean
[m/s]
Pico, midisland
Probability
Probability
Faial, midisland
0
12
34
15
20
Daily mean
[m/s]
0.5
0
12
34
Day type
10
15
20
Daily mean
[m/s]
Probability
Offshore
0.5
0
12
Day type
34
10
15
20
Fig. 1. Day type distributions by daily mean wind speed per location.
REF.
Surplus (GWh)
Surplus (GWh)
NEW
Surplus (GWh)
FAIAL
ORIG.
PICO
20
10
10
5
0
30
40
50
0
15
20
20
25
30
35
20
25
30
35
20
25
30
35
10
10
5
0
30
40
50
0
15
20
10
10
5
0
30
40
50
0
15
Midisland
Fig. 2. Surplus renewable energy versus diesel generated power, evaluated using a year of original data, synthetic wind speed data from the new method and synthetic wind
speed data from the reference method. Each scenario is plotted with a grey dot; scenarios with additional wind power only at the coastal location or the mid-island location
are plotted with a star and plus-sign, respectively.
538
2018
3%
Share
wind surplus
2018
1%
Share
wind surplus
2010
Share
wind surplus
FAIAL
ZOOMEDIN
0.1
0,10
0.2
0.05
0.1
0,6
2,3
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
3,6 10,0
2,6
1,6
6,3
0.2
0,10
0.04
0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
2,6 3,6
0,6 1,6
2,3
6,3 10,0
3,2 6,0 6,1 6,2
0
0.2 0.22 0.24 0.26 0.28 0.3 0.32
0.04
0.5
0.2
0,10
0.02
0.1
0
2,3
3,2
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0
0.18
0.5
6,0
6,1 6,2
6,3 10,0
1,6
0.2
3,6
2,6
0,6
Coastal
Midisland
Fig. 3. Share of surplus wind energy versus renewable energy share of electricity demand in Faial. The different scenarios are marked with a dot; scenarios with additional
wind power only in the mid-island location are marked with a plus-sign (+) and scenarios with additional wind power only in the coastal location are marked with a star ().
The two numbers given for selected scenarios in the right-side graphs give the number of additional turbines installed at the coastal (rst) and mid-island (second) location.
PICO
2010
Share
wind surplus
0.4
ZOOMEDIN
0.2
0.2
0.1
0
0.2
Share
wind surplus
Share
wind surplus
2018
3%
6,0
0
0.3
0.3
0.4
0.4
2018
1%
0,10
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0,10
0.2
0.2
2,4
0.1
0
0.4
0
0.25
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.2
0.4
4,6
0,6 2,6
6,4
6,0 4,2
4,4
10,06,2
0.3
0.35
0,6 2,6
4,4 6,4
6,0 4,2
10,0 6,2
0.2
0
0.25
0.4
0.4
0,10
2,4
0.5
0.3
0.35
4,6
0.4
Midisland
Fig. 4. Share of surplus wind energy versus renewable energy share of electricity demand in Pico. The different scenarios are marked with a dot; scenarios with additional
wind power only in the mid-island location are marked with a plus-sign (+) and scenarios with additional wind power only in the coastal location are marked with a star ().
The two numbers given for selected scenarios give the number of additional turbines installed at the coastal (rst) and mid-island (second) location.
539
2018
3%
Share
wind surplus
Share
wind surplus
2018
1%
0.1
0,0,10,10,0
0,0,10,10,1
0.2
0.05 10,10,0,0,0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.4
0
0.35
10,10,0,0,1
0.4
0.1
0.2
0.45
0.5
0,0,10,10,1
0,0,10,10,0
0.05
10,10,0,0,0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.4
Share
wind surplus
2010
ZOOMEDIN
0.15
0.4
10,10,0,0,1
0
0.3
0.06
0.4
0,0,10,10,1
0,0,10,10,0
0.04
0.2
0.02
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.5
10,10,0,0,0
0
0.25
0.3
10,10,0,0,1
0.35
0.4
All scenarios
Coastal
Midisland
All scenarios, separated grids
Fig. 5. Share of surplus wind energy versus renewable energy share of electricity demand in Faial and Pico combined. In the left-side graphs the scenarios assuming a grid
connection between the two islands are marked with a dot and selected scenarios representing the sum of individual scenarios of Faial and Pico, without a common grid
connection, are marked with a circle (). Of the scenarios with a grid connection, scenarios with additional wind power only in the mid-island location are marked with a plussign (+) and scenarios with additional wind power only in the mid-island location are marked with a star (). The right-side graphs show only scenarios assuming a grid
connection. The ve numbers given for selected scenarios, from left to right, give the number of additional turbines installed at the coastal location of Faial, the coastal
location of Pico, the mid-island location of Faial, the mid-island location of Pico and the offshore location.
site and four at the mid-island site, identied as 2,4 in the rst
graph on the right-side, to the scenario where six wind turbines
are installed at the coastal site and two at the mid-island site, identied as 6,2 in the same plot. The scenarios are similar to each
other both in terms of surplus energy and renewables penetration,
yet one scenarios consists of six installed turbines and the other of
eight installed turbines in total. Clearly the scenario with a total of
six installed wind turbines is economically more feasible.
540
the target for the renewable energy penetration level and the
acceptable level of surplus wind energy, taking into account also
the economic constraints of the system.
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