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Efficient utilization of wind power: Long-distance transmission or local consumption?

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Abstract

Excess wind power produced in wind-intensive areas is normally delivered to remote load centers via long-distance transmission lines. This paper presents a comparison between long-distance transmission, which has gained popularity, and local energy consumption, in which a fraction of the generated wind power can be locally consumed by energy-intensive industries. First, the challenges and solutions to the long-distance transmission and local consumption of wind power are presented. Then, the two approaches to the utilization of wind power are compared in terms of system security, reliability, cost, and capability to utilize wind energy. Finally, the economic feasibility and technical feasibility of the local consumption of wind power are demonstrated by a large and isolated industrial power system, or supermicrogrid, in China. The coal-fired generators together with the short-term interruptible electrolytic aluminum load in the supermicrogrid are able to compensate for the intermittency of wind power. In the long term, the transfer of high-energy-consumption industries to wind-rich areas and their local consumption of the available wind power are beneficial.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant No. 2016YFB0900105) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51190105 and 51477122).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Yuanzhang Sun, Jian Xu, Yi Bao & Siyang Liao

  2. China Southern Power Grid Research Institute, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Xiyuan Ma

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  1. Yuanzhang Sun
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Sun, Y., Ma, X., Xu, J. et al. Efficient utilization of wind power: Long-distance transmission or local consumption?. Front. Mech. Eng. 12, 440–455 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11465-017-0440-3

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