Reliability investigation of the South African power generation system with the inclusion of wind energy

Abstract

Renewable energy sources such as wind energy for electric power supply are receiving serious consideration around the world due to global environmental concerns associated with conventional generation and depleted conventional energy resources to meet increasing electricity demand. This is more than evident in South Africa, where the recently launched Renewable Energy Independent Procurement Program (REIPPPP) has a proposed capacity of 3725MW, allocating 1850MW to wind energy. This dissertation investigates the effects that geographical dispersion and penetration level have on the wind capacity credit and the reliability of the South African power generation system, by estimating the capacity credit. Some of the estimates are tested using a simplified dispatch model, which is also used to estimate other indicators such as the expected energy not served and CO2 emissions of the system for different wind configurations. The sensitivity of the capacity credit definition is further investigated through two definitions. Several scenarios are used to investigate the capacity credit of wind generation, based on the updated IRP base case scenario.