Cost of wind energy generation should include energy storage allowance

Abstract

AbstractThe statistic of wind energy in the US is presently based on annual average capacity factors, and construction cost (CAPEX). This approach suffers from one major downfall, as it does not include any parameter describing the variability of the wind energy generation. As a grid wind and solar only requires significant storage in terms of both power and energy to compensate for the variability of the resource, there is a need to account also for a parameter describing the variability of the power generation. While higher frequency data every minute or less is needed to design the storage, low-frequency monthly values are considered for different wind energy facilities. The annual capacity factors have an average of 0.34. They vary significantly from facility to facility, from a minimum of 0.15 to a maximum of 0.5. They also change year-by-year and are subjected to large month-by-month variability. It is concluded that a better estimation of performance and cost of wind energy facilities should include a parameter describing the variability, and an allowance for storage should be added to the cost. When high-frequency data will be eventually made available over a full year for all the wind and solar facilities connected to the same grid of given demand, then it will be possible to compute growth factors for wind and solar capacity, total power and energy of the storage, cost of the storage, and finally, attribute this cost to every facility inversely proportional to the annual mean capacity factor and directly proportional to the standard deviation about this value. The novelty of the present work is the recognition of the variability of wind power generation as a performance and cost parameter, and the proposal of a practical way to progress the design of the storage and its cost attribution to the generating facilities.