Wind farms' spatial distribution effect on power system reserves requirements

The wind power development during last millennium was typically based on small wind turbines dispersed over large areas, leading to a significant smoothing of the wind power fluctuations in a power system balancing area. The present development goes towards much larger wind farms, concentrated in smaller areas, which causes the total wind power fluctuations in power system areas to increase significantly. The impact of future large wind farms spatial distribution with respect to the power system reserve requirements is analyzed in this paper. For this purpose, Correlated Wind (CorWind) power time series simulation model developed to simulate wind power variability over a large area is used. As a study case, two scenarios for short term offshore wind power development in the West Danish power system region are used. The first scenario assumes that all the wind farms are built in the region with the best wind resources, whereas the second scenario represents a more dispersed development.