Wind-Hydro Hybrid Park operating strategies

Abstract The integration of wind technology in the electrical grid is bound to create power imbalances due to the wind’s high variability. Pump-hydro-storage (PHS) plants allow water to be stored in upper reservoirs, and later used to generate power when a demand exists. The coupling of PHS plants with wind power arises as a solution to overcome the problems of wind power, by allowing the balancing of power deviations. We analyse the operation of such an infrastructure, sharing the same geographical space, known as Wind-Hydro Hybrid Park (WHHP). The objective of the paper is to study two different operating strategies: (i) to maximize the market profit (incorporating a day-ahead optimization and an operational day optimization) and (ii) to generate a constant firm target power output. To this aim, we have forecasted wind speed and market prices using Artificial Neural Networks, to allow for different operational conditions. On one side, we want to show that this type of facility can be operated as to maximize the owner’s profits; on the other side, we demonstrate that the WHHP operation as a firm constant power source is feasible and that about 25% of the installed capacity can be delivered as firm power output.