Baseload wind energy: modeling the competition between gas turbines and compressed air energy storage for supplemental generation

The economic viability of producing baseload wind energy was explored using a cost-optimization model to simulate two competing systems: wind energy supplemented by simple- and combined cycle natural gas turbines (wind+ gas), and wind energy supplemented by compressed air energy storage (wind+CAES). Pure combined cycle natural gas turbines (gas) were used as a proxy for conventional baseload generation. Long-distance electric transmission was integral to the analysis. Given the future uncertainty in both natural gas price and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions price, we introduced an effective fuel price, P-NGeff, being the sum of the real natural gas price and the GHG price. Under the assumption of P-NGeff = $5/GJ (lower heating value), 650 W/m(2) wind resource, 750 km transmission line, and a fixed 90% capacity factor, wind + CAES was the most expensive system at phi 6.0/kWh, and did not break even with the next most expensive wind + gas system until P-NGeff = $9.0/GJ. However, under real market conditions, the system with the least dispatch cost (short-run marginal cost) is dispatched first, attaining the highest capacity factor and diminishing the capacity factors of competitors, raising their total cost. We estimate that the wind + CAES system, with a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rate that is one-fourth of that for natural gas combined cycle plants and about one-tenth of that for pulverized coal plants, has the lowest dispatch cost of the alternatives considered (lower even than for coal power plants) above a GHG emissions price of $35/tC(equiv), with good prospects for realizing a higher capacity factor and a lower total cost of energy than all the competing technologies over a wide range of effective fuel costs. This ability to compete in economic dispatch greatly boosts the market penetration potential of wind energy and suggests a substantial growth opportunity for natural gas in providing baseload power via wind + CAES, even at high natural gas prices. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.