The impacts of hybrid connection pumped storage hydropower and wind power in Iranian grid

Abstract

Many reasons such as increasing in price of fossil fuel and the decreasing sources of fuel as well as greenhouse gas problems cause the trend towards using renewable energy instead. One of the more popular renewable energy sources is wind power (WP). Beside of all the advantages and the fact that the wind farms (WFs) can connect to the grid, they have unstable production and the energy cannot be stored when the grid does not need power. The main concern of the increase number of WFs in Iran is the uncertainty of WP. Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is a solution which helps WF operation to become more stable and reliable. Consequently, the ways of connections between grid, WP and PSH are important for this system. In this paper, an attempt is made to solve this problem by manipulating all available hybrid and individual connections between current grid, WF and PSH. This hybrid connection can help the grid to generate more reliable power. In addition, the amount of WP is shown to increase realistically. All possible connection types and their impacts were investigated.