ECONOMIC IMPACT OF WIND GENERATION PENETRATION IN THE COLOMBIAN ELECTRICITY MARKET

The creation of the Renewable Energy Law (Law 1715 of 2014) promotes the introduction of large-scale renewable energy generation in the Colombian electricity market. The new legislation aims to diversify the country's generation matrix, mainly composed of hydro and fuel-based generation, each respectively, with a share of 66% and 34%. Currently, three wind generation projects, with an aggregated capacity of 500 MW, have been commissioned in the North of the country. This study analyses the economic impact of the large-scale introduction of wind generation on both the spot market price and conventional generation plants operation. For this purpose, the study builds a unit commitment model to mimic the current market legislation and the system's generation data. We show that the introduction of wind energy into the Colombian electricity market would impact the generation share of large hydro, gas-, and coal-fired power plants. The hydro and gas generation plants have an essential role in balancing the generation fluctuations on the wind resource. Meanwhile, the coal-fired plants would continually decrease their share in the system's energy mix after 650 MW of installed wind capacity, until entirely ceasing to provide energy to the system at 750 MW of wind penetration.