Production costing and economic analysis of power systems containing wind energy conversion systems

Electrical energy can be generated by various sources, namely conventional sources, such as nuclear, coal, diesel, etc. and non-conventional sources, such as wind, tidal, solar energy, etc. Presently, there is a great deal of growing interest in the non-conventional sources of energy, as they are limitless and cheap to operate. Of the various non-conventional sources, wind has one of the best potentials. In this paper, the effect of combining wind energy conversion systems (WECS) with the conventional power system is studied. Production costing of the combined system is performed by Fast transform techniques. An economic analysis is performed, based on the production costs, to study the benefits obtained over the lifetime of the WECS, which determines the effectiveness of the installation of a WECS at a particular wind site. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.