Prediction and evaluation of the performance of wind-diesel energy systems

A Monte Carlo based method for predicting the economic performance and reliability of autonomous energy systems consisting of diesel generators and wind energy converters (WECs), is proposed. Several technical constraints are applied, among them the most significant are the limitation of wind power penetration due to both the load demand and a minimum permissible power of the diesel generators. Start up-shutdown costs, two-fuel diesel units and reliability are considered. The proposed method divides the total simulation period into time intervals and for every time interval uses dynamic programming techniques to determine the diesel unit commitment. Results are presented for two Greek islands. It is shown that proper central control of WECs in a system increases significantly the wind energy penetration, which is strongly affected by the way commitment is made.