A significant reduction in the costs of battery energy storage systems by use of smart parking lots in the power fluctuation smoothing process of the wind farms

Wind farm power fluctuations resulted from the wind random nature bring a significant challenge to the wind turbine generators operating in the maximum power point tracking. Furthermore, the smoothing process of a large wind farm in which the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) is used, needs a considerable initial investment cost. Utilizing Smart Parking Lots (SPLs) can be considered as an applicable solution. In this paper, assuming conventional parking lots in Tehran converted to an SPL set in a near future and thus establishing an enormous charging/discharging capacity, the smoothing process is performed on a 51 MW wind farm. For this purpose, a coordinated control system based on two control algorithms is proposed. The first proposed algorithm chooses eligible SPLs for charging/discharging activity before receiving a new sample of the wind farm output power. Afterwards, the second proposed algorithm determines qualified vehicles in selected SPLs. The main aim is to minimize the number of SPLs (vehicles) taking part in the process. According to the simulation results, the required BESS capacity in the power smoothing process of a typical wind farm decreases considerably when the proposed approach is applied. Thus, the investment cost of BESS is reduced significantly. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.