Potential of Wind Power to Provide Flexible Ramping Products and Operating Reserve

Abstract

With increasing penetration levels of variable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, electric power systems need flexible resources that can provide fast-response ramping capabilities to counter the variability and uncertainty of renewable generation. Although the California Independent System Operator and Midcontinent System Operator have lauched ramp products, determining how wind power can participate using their flexible ramping models is still largely unclear. This paper proposes a security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) model considering a flexible ramping constraint that represents the system’s flexible ramping requirements that account for the net load probabilistic forecast uncertainty. Through this explicit modeling of uncertainty, the true cost of the flexible ramp service can be determined after solving the SCUC problem. In addition, the potential of wind power to provide operating reserves is analyzed. Numerical case studies demonstrate that with wind power providing both flexible ramping products and operating reserves, the system operating costs and ramp shortages will be reduced significantly.