Improving capacity factor of transmission lines by hybridizing CSP with wind

Due to intermittent behavior of generated wind power, capacity factor of installed transmission lines decreases, which in return increases the payback time and also limits the grid penetration of the wind power plant. One option to compensate this is by using fossil fuel back up, but it is not a sustainable option due to the increased greenhouse gas emissions associated with fossil fuels. Another option is to couple a concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant, provided there are ample solar resources available. Additionally, in order to increase the capacity of the combined power plant, storage can be added to the CSP plant. In this paper, detailed modeling of solar resources at Bahçe Wind Farm located in the Bahçe district of Osmaniye province has been performed and a 50MW CSP plant to hybridize with wind plant has been proposed. Based on the simulation results, it is found that average capacity factor of connected transmission lines can increase by ~ 34%, with approximately 11% of energy dumped under extreme circumstance.