Modeling Utility-Scale Wind Power Plants, Part 2: Capacity Credit

As the worldwide use of wind turbine generators in utility-scale applications continues to increase, it will become increasingly important to assess the economic and reliability impact of these intermittent resources. Although the utility industry appears to be moving towards a restructured environment, basic economic and reliability issues will continue to be relevant to companies involved withelectricity generation. This paper is the second in a two-part series that addresses modeling approaches and results that were obtained in several case studies and research projects at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This second paper focuses on wind plant capacity credit as measured with power system reliability indices. Reliability-based methods of measuring capacity credit arecompared with wind plant capacity factor. The relationship between capacity-credit and accurate wind forecasting is also explored.