Design of a Wind Turbine Battery Energy Storage Scheme to Achieve Power Dispatchability

KW Wee, SS Choi and DM Vilathgamuwa

School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Nanyang Technological University Singapore Email: esschoi@ntu.edu.sg
Abstract Battery energy storage system (BESS) is to be incorporated in a wind farm to achieve constant power dispatch. The design of the BESS is based on the forecasted wind speed, and the technique assumes the distribution of the error between the forecasted and actual wind speeds is Gaussian. It is then shown that although the error between the predicted and actual wind powers can be evaluated, it is non-Gaussian. With the known distribution in the error of the predicted wind power, the capacity of the BESS can be determined in terms of the confident level in meeting specified constant power dispatch commitment. Furthermore, a short-term power dispatch strategy is also developed which takes into account the state of charge (SOC) of the BESS. The proposed approach is useful in the planning of the wind farm-BESS scheme and in the operational planning of the wind power generating station. Keywords - Battery energy storage system; dispatchable power; wind energy.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Wind turbine power generation has grown 50 times since 1990 to reach the global installed capacity of some 94 GW by 2007 [1]. Owing to the diminishing known reserves of fossil fuels and the incentives given to reduce greenhouse gas production, wind power generation is beginning to compete directly with fossil-fuel plants. While wind-powered electricity generation technology is quite mature, unfortunately wind itself is an unsteady energy source. The unsteadiness in power production is one main technical impediment to larger penetration of the wind generators in electrical grids. One technique which allows some control on the output power from wind farms is by incorporating energy storage system (ESS) in the farms and this paper investigates one such scheme. An ESS can be classified according to its energy capacity, power capability and the duration for its effective operation. ESS is used in power systems to achieve any one of three functions: power quality enhancement, bridging power and power leveling [2]. ESS technologies developed for large utility-scale applications include pumped hydroelectric storage, compressed air energy storage (CAES), flywheel energy storage, supercapacitors, and batteries. Application of a particular ESS has to take into consideration the particular function it is intended to perform, as well as its cost, maintenance requirements, among other factors.

Utilising batteries as an energy storage medium has several advantages over other types of ESS. Besides being modular, a BESS usually has manageable environmental impacts; it is not restricted by location/terrain constraints and has much shorter construction time compared to pump-hydroelectric and CAES. Indeed, with the development of more advanced batteries which have higher power and energy specific densities, BESS is deemed suitable for integration with intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind [3-5]. Another important requirement for successful large-scale operation of wind generation is accurate wind power forecast using predicted wind speed. From [6-8], it was reported that the error between the predicted and actual wind speeds can be described by the Gaussian distribution. Furthermore, when the predicted wind speed is used to predict the output wind power generated by a typical wind turbine, the error between the predicted and actual wind powers is not Gaussian distributed [7, 8]. An analytical explanation of this latter observation will be provided in the next section. Based on the statistical characteristics of the wind power error, Section III shows a proposed approach in the design of the wind farm BESS scheme. The objective of the design is to provide firm power dispatch commitment to the grid. Two aspects of the design will be dealt with: that for planning and for operational planning. The determination of the BESS capacities is considered in the planning phase, by taking into account the various operational issues and the accuracy of the wind power prediction. The operational planning pertains to the design of short-term power dispatch strategy for the wind farm. A new dispatch strategy which takes into account the state-of-charge (SOC) of the BESS is shown. In Section IV, a numerical example will be given to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme in achieving firm power dispatch. II. DISTRIBUTION OF THE ERROR IN PREDICTED WIND POWER

A. Graphical description As explained in previous section, the error in the wind speed can be described by the Gaussian curve [6-8] but not that of the wind power. This observation can be explained by considering Figures 1 and 2.

978-1-4244-7398-4/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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where the parameter k is a constant for a given wind turbine generator. Lastly, Section III: P = rated turbine power (a constant), for between r, to out. In order to obtain the probability density function (pdf) of P, denoted as fP(p), one will need to evaluate the pdf of , f(), over each of the three respective sections and combine them. That is, the pdf of P for Section I, fP1(p), can be obtained from

f P1 (p) =
Figure 1. Wind power error distributions resulted from the three Gaussian wind speed error curves (each with a wind speed error standard deviation of 1 m/s). Assumed wind turbine power characteristic curve is superimposed.

in

f ()d +

out

f ()d

(2)

Figure 2. A wider Gaussian wind speed error curve than that shown in Fig. 1 superimposed onto the same wind turbine power characteristic curve to produce the resultant wind power error curve.

Similarly, the pdf of P for Section II; the integration limits are from in to r. Finally, the integration limits are from r to out for the pdf of Section III. Hence, through this numerical process, one can determine fP(p) once f() is given. From the pdf of P obtained using the method described above, it is clear that fP(p) is not Gaussian. Hence to evaluate statistical properties from it the mean and standard deviation analytically will be quite meaningless. Alternatively, one can just focus on the narrower range of in < < r through (1). Although this simplified analysis does not consider the distribution of wind speed below the turbine cut-in speed and that above the turbine rated speed, it does provide some meaningful statistical measures. To derive the desired fP(p), one starts with its cumulative distribution function (cdf) and expresses it in terms of the cdf of and then differentiating it to obtain the fP(p). Hence:
Pr{P p} = FP {P p} = FP {k 3 p} = F {
3

Shown in Fig. 1 are three Gaussian curves describing the three possible distributions in the wind speed error, plotted along the abscissa. Suppose each distribution has a standard deviation of 1m/s, and they are superimposed onto the typical wind turbine output power characteristic curve shown there. The three resultant wind power error distribution curves are plotted along the power-axis. From Fig. 1, it is obvious that the resultant wind power error distributions cannot be quantified as Gaussian, especially at those regions around the turbine cut-in speed and beyond the turbine rated speed. Fig. 2 shows a wider-spread wind speed error curve than that shown in Fig. 1. It can be seen from the figure that again the resultant wind power error distribution is no longer Gaussian and is highly unsymmetrical. Thus in general, one cannot expect the predicted wind power error distribution to be Gaussian even when the distribution in the wind speed error is Gaussian. B. Analysis The previous section provides a graphical explanation of the error distribution in the predicted wind power. In this section, an analytical approach to derive the wind power error distribution will be given. It is required to relate the two random variables: wind speed error, , and the wind power, P, via the wind turbine power characteristic curve. Using the wind turbine output power characteristic curve from Fig. 2, it can be seen that P can lie within any one of the three sections. Section I: P = 0, for below the turbine cut-in speed, in, and beyond the turbine cut-out speed, out. Section II: for speed above in up to turbine rated speed, r, P is given by: P = k3 (1)

p } k

(3)

where Pr{P p} denotes the probability of random variable P having outcome values less than or equal to p. FP {i} and F{i} denote the cdf of P and respectively with the probability of event {i} occurring. By differentiating (3) with respect to p, the resultant fP(p) is:
FP'{P p} = f P (p) = 1 1 2 3 p p 3 f ( ) 33k k (4)

where FP '{i} denotes the first derivative of FP {i} . Since is Gaussian, the pdf of , f ( ) , is given as:
f ( ) = 1 2
p k
2 ( ) 2

2 2

(5)

Therefore, using (5), fP(p) in (4) can be written as

f P ( p) = 1 3 3 kp 2 2 2
( 3 ) 2

2 2

(6)

Whence the mean of P, P , and the variance of P, ( P )2 are:

P =

p f

( p )dp,

(7)

and

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( P ) 2 =

p 2 f P ( p )dp p f P ( p )dp .

(8)

The derivation in the predicted wind power error statistics will be useful because it will be shown in the next section that the error is equal to the BESS power. A statistical method to determine the BESS power capacity will then be proposed based on the wind power error, if the predicted wind speed error lies within the range satisfying (1). Hence, with the derivation of (6) - (8), one can evaluate the probability of occurrences of the BESS power flow events (say) to within 3P from the mean value P. The probability obtained will represent the confidence level of the BESS being able to commit dispatch to the grid, without exceeding the BESS power rating. III. DESIGN OF A DISPATCHABLE WIND POWER BESS SCHEME

must take into account the various operational issues and hence planning and operational planning of the wind farm are closely interrelated. In the following section, an important operational requirement will be described first before the method of planning and operational planning of the wind farm will be shown.

As explained in Section I, wind is an unsteady energy source and direct inter-connection of a wind farm into grid will result in fluctuations in the power flow. This is undesirable. In this section, it is shown that a constant power dispatch can be maintained through the incorporation of a BESS into the wind farm. Fig. 3 shows the studied topology whereby a wind farm (represented by an equivalent wind turbine generator) is operating in parallel with a BESS and dispatching power Pd into the grid. PW denotes the wind generator output power. Pd represents the constant dispatch power that the wind farm can commit to the grid. Pd will be allowed to vary from one constant level to another, typically on an hourly basis. A method to determine the constant value for Pd will be explained later. With the BESS acting as an energy buffer, the fluctuating power components from the wind will be regulated by the BESS, i.e. any power deviations between Pd and PW will be compensated by PBESS. It is seen in Fig. 3 that:

A. Short-term market rule To ensure the design of the wind farm BESS is realistic, it is necessary to consider the market rule under which the wind generator is to operate in. Most modern market rule requires the generators to adhere to an n-hour ahead market, i.e. the committed dispatch power from a generator cannot be altered for the immediate n-hour interval or the generator will be financially penalized. The generator can only change the dispatch power values in the (n+1) hour and beyond. In this way, the wind power producer will have to rely on predicted wind power of at least the next (n+1)-hour. For example, in a 2-hour ahead market shown in Fig. 4, suppose a fresh set of dispatch bids is to be submitted at the instance indicated as now. The power dispatch values for the immediate 2 hours, i.e. for hr 2-3 and hr 3-4 must not be altered from those values which have been committed earlier. The power dispatch value(s) from the interval hr 4-5 and beyond may be altered. As a result, the hourly average power forecasts for the next 3 hours and beyond are required. Hence, the dispatch bid at the kth hour will require the prediction to be made at the latest on the (k-3)th hour.

Figure 4.

Time-frame for a 2-hour ahead market.

Pd = P + PBESS W

(9)

where the directions of the arrows represent the assumed positive direction of power flow.

Prediction error increases with increasing prediction horizon [7, 9], and hence, more accurate forecasts can be expected with smaller n. As a result, operational planning for a day-ahead market as compared to an hour-ahead market will pose more challenge for both the determination of the BESS rating requirements and the design of the short-term dispatch.

Figure 3. Wind farm incorporating a BESS interconnected to the grid.

There are two aspects to the design problem: planning and operational planning. In the planning phase, the task is to determine the BESS capacities for a given wind resource. Operational planning is pertaining to the design of a short-term dispatch scheme, with the wind resource and BESS capacities known. The determination of the appropriate BESS capacities

B. Determination of BESS capacities: a planning task A method is now proposed to determine the BESS capacities. The method uses the predicted wind power error statistics and it is also designed to meet the n-hour ahead market rule described earlier. In this method, at least two consecutive years of historical wind power data from a wind farm under study should be utilized. This two-year data is considered adequate for the present purpose. Suppose Year-1 data will be utilized to construct a wind power forecast model based on any one of the many forecasting techniques described in [9]. The constructed model is subsequently used to predict the Year-2 hourly average power and will represent the committed hourly power dispatch, Pd, in (9). How Pd is determined will depend on the time resolution of the predicted wind power data acquired from the forecast model. That is, if the predicted wind power data is

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in per-minute resolution, then Pd can be obtained from the average of the predicted data over a period of one hour. In the present case, since the actual Year 2 wind power is available, one can therefore treat the difference between the actual Year-2 wind power data and the corresponding Pd as the mismatched power that is to be compensated by the BESS. Once the difference between the actual wind power and the various Pd values in Year-2 has been determined, the next steps are to compute the mismatched power probability density function (pdf) and its cumulative distribution function (cdf). Since the mismatched power is to be supplied/absorbed by the BESS, hence, the BESS power over Year-2 will be obtained. An example of the mismatch power (i.e. BESS power) pdf and its cdf are illustrated in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 respectively.

the grid all the time and without exceeding the BESS power rating. With all values of E so determined, the pdf and cdf of BESS energy capacity can then be computed.

C. Operational Planning: short-term power dispatch scheme Once the capacities of the BESS have been determined, the next focus is on how to achieve firm power dispatch from the wind farm for operational planning purpose. A short-term dispatch scheme is hereby proposed. Although the dispatch Pd can be determined using the wind power forecast explained in Section III.B, in operational planning, it is intended that the BESS be utilized more efficiently by taking into account the BESS current State-Of-Charge (SOC) level when planning for future power dispatch bids. The premise of this proposed design is that it is logical to set a higher dispatch power bid than the original Pd when the BESS SOC is above a predetermined level, and vice versa. In this method, therefore the original dispatch bid Pd is modified by the inclusion of a correction factor. The correction factor, called the gain factor, can be of the form shown in Fig. 7: the gain-factor is shown to vary with respect to the available BESS SOC level (in pu of BESS rated energy capacity) in a piece-wise linear manner.

Figure 5. PDF of mismatched or BESS power.

Figure 7. Gain Factor for determining the new power dispatch bid using BESS current State-Of-Charge (SOC) level.

Figure 6. CDF of mismatched or BESS power.

The result shown on Fig. 6 is very useful. Since the mismatched power or the error in the predicted wind power is also the BESS power, hence, the mismatched power cdf shown in Fig. 6 is also the cdf of the BESS power. Depending on the confidence level that the wind farm operator wishes to commit power reliably into the grid, the BESS power rating can be readily determined using the cdf. Using Fig. 6 as an example, supposedly if it was decided that the power rating of the BESS is to be X MW, this means that the BESS is capable of delivering/absorbing a maximum power of X MW. With this rating, a confidence level of 100% is obtained from Fig. 6. Therefore, this statistical method can be used to determine the BESS power capacity in which the capacity can be related to the confidence level in successful power dispatch. Next, in order to determine the BESS energy capacity, the mismatched power or BESS power are first integrated with respect to time to obtain the change in the stored energy level (E) in the BESS. The initial E in the BESS is 0 MWh. Suppose if the maximum change in the stored value of the BESS from supplying its energy to the grid is E+ (a positive value) and the maximum change in the stored energy from absorbing the surplus energy from the wind is E- (a negative value). Then (E+ - E-) will represent the minimum energy capacity of the BESS required to commit power reliably into

Figure 8. Short-term power dispatch control scheme.

Fig. 8 shows the schematic of the short-term power dispatch control scheme. Using the 2-hour ahead example, for the kth hour dispatch interval, the original power dispatch bid Pd,k was determined at the latest at the end of (k-3)th hour as was explained in Section III.A. Taking into consideration the BESS SOC level EBESS,(k-3) at the end of the (k-3)th hour, the gain-factor G.F(k-3) at the (k-3)th hour will be determined by the G.F block in Fig. 8 which can be of the form of Fig. 7. The revised dispatch power value at the kth hour, Pd,k, is:

P 'd ,k = Pd , k + ( G.F( k 3) Pd ,k )

(10)

Due to the inaccuracy in the wind power forecast, the mismatch between Pd,k and the actual wind farm output will be

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the power compensated by the BESS. Hence, the nett wind farm output power and the BESS power is the dispatch power. IV. NUMERICAL EXAMPLE In this section, the feasibility of achieving firm power dispatch into the grid using the schemes described in Section III will be demonstrated using a numerical example. The case study is for a 30 MW rated wind farm operating in parallel with a BESS in a 2-hour ahead market. Before demonstrating the dispatch study, wind power forecast and the dispatch bids will be elaborated first.

at the rate of up to 10 MW. With this rating, a confidence level of about 99% is obtained according to Fig. 9. For 99% of the time, the BESS is able to handle the mismatch power without PBESS exceeding the BESS power rating.

A. Wind power forecasts and power dispatch bids As wind power forecasting techniques are not the subject of this investigation, prediction methods developed by other researchers will be adopted in the present study. The authors in [10] stated that recent advances in wind forecasting methodologies are able to estimate the next-hour average wind power with a RMS error of 10%. As the case study in the present paper assumes a 2-hour ahead spot market, a similar method to that used in [10] will be adopted here. However, as the 2-hour ahead market requires 3-hour ahead wind power predictions, minor amendments to the method in [10] will be required. In [11], the authors investigated RMS prediction error versus look-ahead times (prediction horizon) for their proposed prediction model against the so-called persistence method. In the graph of the Normalised Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) versus look-ahead times given in [11], 3-hour ahead wind power can be forecasted with a RMS error of 15%. Hence, the method used in [10] will be combined with that of [11], and it was decided that the present 3-hour ahead predicted dispatch power value is taken to be the actual 3-hour ahead average wind power augmented with a 15% noise term. Thus, for kth hour predicted dispatch power value Pd,k: 1 60 Pd , k = Pp , j (11) 60 j =1
Pp ,i = P ,i + ( 0.15 R.N P ,i ) , W W
i = 1, 2,..., 60.

Figure 9. Wind power prediction error cdf for the 30 MW rated wind farm.

Next, the BESS energy capacity will be determined. The pdf and cdf of BESS energy capacity are computed and they are shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 respectively, with the energy capacity normalized to 10 MWh.

Figure 10. BESS energy pdf.

Figure 11. BESS energy cdf and the confidence level shown for a BESS having an effective capacity of 8 MWh.

where Pp,i is assumed to be the per-minute predicted wind power for minute i. PW,i is the actual wind power for the minute i. ( 0.15 R.N P ,i ) is the 15% noise term. R.N is a W random number having a value within the range of -1 to 1, and it is randomly selected from a set of numbers having uniform distribution. B. Determination of BESS power rating and energy capacity The proposed planning scheme highlighted in Section III will be used to determine the BESS power and energy capacities. The actual wind power given in [12] for Iowa, USA for May 2009 will be used, and from it, the forecasted hourly average values are determined using the method described in Part A of this Section. Hence the error in the predicted wind power, or BESS power, and E can then be computed. The pdf and cdf of the wind power prediction error are computed next. The cdf is shown in Fig. 9 and from which it was decided that the power rating of the BESS will be 10 MW. This rating shows that the BESS is capable of delivering/absorbing energy

From Fig. 11, it was decided that the rated BESS energy capacity will be 10 MWh. However, as normal operating BESS SOC levels usually range between 20% and 100% of its rated energy capacity, the 10 MWh rated BESS will only have an effective capacity of 8 MWh. With this effective capacity, a confidence level of about 96% is obtained according to Fig. 11. C. Short-term dispatch A 2-week duration of the actual wind power for the same Iowa wind turbine site in June 2009 will be used in this example. The forecasted hourly average values (committed power dispatch bids) will form the original wind farm bids. The wind farm is to operate in parallel with the 10MW, 10MWh BESS and the intention is to design the short-term dispatch for the two-week in June. The simulation results from this case study will provide a good test of the adequacy for the determined BESS ratings and also the proposed dispatch scheme.

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The gain of the piece-wise linear gain factor curve shown in Fig. 7 was chosen arbitrarily to be -0.36 at 0.2 pu SOC, 0 at 0.5 pu SOC and 0.6 at 1.0 SOC. The initial SOC of the BESS is assumed to be 0.5 pu. From the simulation results obtained, it is observed that the objective of firm power dispatch has been attained. However, for the brevity of this paper, only the close-up view of the dispatch power, actual wind power and the BESS power for day 2, week 1 of June 2009 is shown in Fig. 12. Fig. 13 shows the SOC level of BESS for weeks 1 and 2.

V.

CONCLUSIONS

A battery energy storage system (BESS) is used to overcome the unsteady power harnessed from the wind. To achieve the hourly constant power dispatch objective, the power dispatch problem has been examined from two aspects: planning and operational planning. The planning problem is pertaining to the determination of the BESS power and energy capacities. The operational planning aspect is to deal with the short-term dispatch of the wind farm. The two aspects are interrelated and it is imperative to take into account the various operational requirements when determining the appropriate BESS capacities. The simulation results obtained show that the proposed approach to the planning and dispatch strategies of the wind farm-BESS scheme is promising. REFERENCES
[1] U. Aswathanarayana, and R. S. Divi, Energy Portfolios, CRC Press, pp. 262-281, 2009. [2] F. A. Farret, and M. G. Simes, Integration of Alternative Sources of Energy, John Wiley & Sons, pp.264-265, 2006. [3] J. Kondoh, Stationary Applications. Load Levelling, Industrial Applications of Batteries, M. Brousselyon, and G. Pistoia, Eds., Elsevier, pp. 462- 477, 2007. [4] Summary of KEMA validation report on advanced Li-ion BESS, http://www.b2i.cc/Document/546/KEMA_Carina_validation_report_pub lic_final.pdf. [5] Energy Storage Association Website, http://www.electricitystorage.org/site/technologies. [6] R. Billington, H. Chen, and R. Ghajar, Time-series model for reliability evaluation of Power Systems including Wind Energy, Microelectronics and Reliability, vol. 36, issue 9, pp. 12531261, September 1996. [7] M. Lange, Analysis of the Uncertainty of Wind Power Predictions, PhD thesis, University of Oldenburg, pp. 7-10, 2003. [8] M. Lange, On the Uncertainty of Wind Power Predictions Analysis of the Forecast Accuracy and Statistical Distribution of Errors, Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, vol.127, pp. 177-184, May 2005. [9] G. Giebel, R. Brownsword, and G. Kariniotakis, The state-of-the-art in short-term prediction of Wind Power a literature overview, Development of a next generation wind resource forecasting system for the large-scale integration of onshore and offshore wind farms, http://anemos.cma.fr/download/ANEMO_D1.1_StateOfTheArt_v1.1.pdf [10] S. Teleke, M. E. Baran, A. Q. Huang, S. Bhattacharya, and L. Anderson, Control Strategies for Battery Energy Storage for Wind Farm Dispatching, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 725-731, September 2009. [11] G. Sideratos, and N. D. Hatziargyriou, An advanced statistical method for Wind Power Forecasting, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 261264, February 2007. [12] Iowa Environment Mesonet. AWOS download data. [Online]. Available: http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/awos/1min.php.

Figure 12. Pd, PW and PBESS for day 2, week 1 of June 2009.

Figure 13. SOC level of BESS for weeks 1 and 2.

From Fig. 12, it is seen that the power absorbed/discharged by the BESS is kept within the limit of 10 MW. In addition, the export power, Pd, is equal to the algebraic sum of Pw and PBESS in every instance. Hence, the specified confidence level of being able to commit power reliably into the electric grid can be achieved by the proper selection of the required BESS ratings. However, as the confidence level is less than 100%, there will still be instances whereby PBESS reaches its limit and Pd cannot be maintained at the set level. Fortunately, no such events have been observed from the simulation results. Furthermore, it can be seen from Fig. 13 that the SOC level of the BESS is maintained within the limits of 0.2 pu to 1.0 pu of its rated energy capacity. From the simulation results, it is promising to note that this short-term dispatch scheme does indeed provide a viable option for firm power dispatch from the wind farm.

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