Reliability models for large wind farms in generation system planning

The integration of a large number of wind farms will have a significant impact on the reliability performance of the electric generation systems. The recognition of energy limitations is an important factor when examining wind energy conversion systems (WECS). The primary energy source, wind is not always available and the power output characteristic of any wind turbine generator (WTG) is different than that of any of the traditional generation units. A wind farm consists of a large number of WTGs and a major difficulty in modeling a wind farm is that each WTG will not have an independent capacity distribution due to the dependence of the individual turbine output on the same energy source, the wind. This paper presents reliability models for large wind farms for use in generation system planning studies.