Ultra high wind penetration in simple wind-diesel power systems in Cape Verde

摘要

The Cape Verde Islands are situated west of Africa in the northern trade wind belt with excellent wind conditions for wind power. Presently, the island's power supply is based solely on diesel power generation, and it is obvious to integrate wind power. The operation of combined wind & diesel generation with high amount of wind power has been studied in order to design an attractive wind power project for the bidders in terms of large scale and little risk. The power systems at three of the Cape Verdean islands with different expected demand developments and different wind power capacities have been simulated, using the IPSYS time series load-flow simulation tool. The results of the simulations indicate that it may be economically justified to invest in more wind power capacities than actually can be fully utilised the first years of operation. However, with the expected developments of the demand, the installed wind power capacities can be fully utilised after few years. The amount of available wind power generation that cannot be utilised the first year of operation for the three power systems expects to be within the range 0% to 10%. All the wind power expects to be fully utilised after few years.