Managing variability of wind energy with heating load control

Wind power generation has expanded rapidly in the past two decades and supplies 20% of Denmarkpsilas electricity, and 5 - 7% in Germany, Spain and Ireland. It is likely that Ireland will be the first of these countries to reach the 10% level, probably by 2010. The Irish grid does not have the benefit of strong interconnection with neighbouring grids, as is the case with Denmark. If wind power is to push past the 10% level in Ireland, new system operational strategies will be needed. This paper describes a potential application for controllable domestic heat loads, and flexible distributed generation in power systems with significant capacities of uncertain wind generation. The paper demonstrates the prioritisation of these two balancing resources, the first derived from the electrical heat load component of system demand, the second derived from distributed diesel generation. The methods described can be effectively used to help match demand with generation during times of wind forecast errors.