Date of Award
8-1-2012
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Geography and Environmental Resources
First Advisor
Schoof, Justin
Abstract
Wind power is a fast-growing, sustainable energy source. However, the problem of wind variability as it relates to wind power reliability is an obstacle to its large-scale deployment. It is possible to improve the reliability of wind power by interconnecting wind generation. In this study, wind power plants within the Midwest ISO were aggregated to examine the effect on reliability. Wind speed data from the North American Regional Reanalysis were used to calculate wind power data. It was found that the reliability of interconnected wind power was improved relative to individual wind power plants in both the short-term and the long-term, and that the most significant improvements were at the highest scales of interconnection. It was also found that the reliability of interconnected wind power is more directly related to the area of the network rather than the number of wind power plants in the network.
Access
This thesis is Open Access and may be downloaded by anyone.