Assessing the Operational Potential of Pumped-Storage Hydro Generators for Supporting the Grid Integration of Wind Farms

This study evaluates the operational potential of pumped-storage hydro generators (PSHGs) as a regulating power source for the stable use of wind power generation. In recent years, the concept of a balancing group (BG), consisting of multiple generators, has been considered to alleviate the imbalance, defined as a discrepancy between planned and actual power supply values. Combining unstable power sources, such as wind power with controllable sources such as PSHG, is expected to reduce the imbalance in BG. For the effective utilization of PSHG, power system operators need to determine a schedule of operation considering the uncertainty in the wind farm (WF) output on the preceding day. In this study, the operation scheduling of PSHG, based on the interval prediction results of wind power generation, is discussed and the potential contribution of PSHG operation is assessed from the perspective of the imbalance reduction within this framework. The operational potential is evaluated from the viewpoint of the types of PSHG, that is, fixed-speed and variable-speed PSHGs, by the annual operational simulation using real-world WF output data. The results show that the appropriate operational scheduling of a single variable-speed PSHG can contribute to a reduction in imbalance comparable to the reduction achieved by two fixed-speed PSHGs.