Wind Power Curtailment Analysis under Generation Flexibility Requirements: the Spanish Case Study

Nowadays, the promotion of flexibility in power systems is crucial to integrate non-manageable Renewable Energy Sources into the grid, mainly due to both variability and uncertainty issues. A wide range of strategies are currently available to provide suitable alternatives depending on the characteristics of each solution. According to previous contributions, these solutions can be classified into: dispatchable power plants, energy storage, interconnection capacity and demand side response. In power systems with high wind power penetration, real time Wind Power Curtailment appears as a solution to maintain the power system stability during time periods with low flexibility response. These curtailments have become a major issue in wind energy integration, representing a waste of green energy and a loss of income for wind farms owners. For example, in 2013, wind power curtailment was over 1100 GWh in Spain. Under this scenario, the present paper analyzes the ranges of flexible resources during real time wind power curtailments collected from 2010 to 2013 within the Spanish power system. Combined Cycle Plants and hydro generation units are considered as dispatchable resources, whereas Pumped Hydro Plants are assumed as storage resources. These flexible resources are thus accounted to find the ranges of flexibility, where Wind Power Curtailment cannot be avoided, being pointed out the most important wind power curtailment properties: the beginning, the duration and the end of each wind power curtailment.