Opportunities for wind resources in the future competitive California power market

The goal of this this work is to evaluate the wind development in the future competitive California power market. The viability of possible wind sites is assessed using a geographic information system (GIS) to determine the cost of development and Elfin, an electric utility production costing and capacity expansion model, to estimate the possible revenues and profits of wind farms at the sites. This approach improves on a simple profitability calculation by using site specific development cost calculations and by taking the the effect of time varying market prices on revenues into account. The first component of the work is the charcterization of wind resources suitable for use in production costing and capacity expansion models such as Elfin that are capable of simulating competitive electricity markets. An improved representation of California wind resources is built, using information collected by the California Energy Commission in previous site evaluations, and Dy using a GIS approach to estimating development costs at 36 specific sites. These sites, which have been identified as favourable for wind development, are placed on Digital Elevation Models and development costs are culculated based on distances to roads and transmission lines. GIS is also used to develop the potential capacity at each sire by making use of the physical characteristics of the terrain, such as ridge lengths. In rite second part of the effort, using a previously developed algorithm for simulating competitive entry to the California electricity market , Elfin is used to gauge the viability of wind farms at the 36 sites. The results of this exercise are forecasts of profitable development levels at each site and the effects of these developments, on the electricity system us a whole. Results suggest that by the year 2030, about 7.5 GW of potential wind capacity can be profitably developed assuming rising natural gas prices. This example demonstrates that an analysis based on a simple levelized profitability calculation approach does not completely capture the implications of time varying prices in a competitive market.