Cost–benefit analysis of pumped hydro storage using improved probabilistic production simulation method

This study presents an improved probabilistic production simulation method to facilitate the cost–benefit analysis of pumped hydro storage. To capture the coherent feature of power system operation, the traditional form of probabilistic production simulation is strengthened under a three-fold computational framework. First, the chronological sequences of renewable energy generation and imbalanced power are produced according to a set of feature metrics. Then, the imbalanced power series are modified through the long-term scheduling of pumped hydro storage. At last, the regular steps of probabilistic production simulation, including construction of equivalent energy function and convolution operation, are implemented to derive the operational cost and reliability metrics of power system. Case studies on IEEE-RTS79 system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed simulation method, which enables the quantitative assessment for cost-benefits of pumped hydro storage towards a high-penetration renewable energy integrated power system.