Implications of spatial reliability within the wind sector

Distributed energy systems have gained increasing popularity due to their plethora of benefits. However, their evaluation in terms of reliability mostly concerns the time frequency domain, and thus, merits associated with the spatial scale are often over-looked. A recent study exhibited the benefits of distributed production over centralized one, by establishing a spatial reliability framework and stress-testing it for decentralized solar photovoltaic (PV) generation. This work extends and verifies this approach to wind energy systems, while also highlighting additional challenges for implementation. These are due to the complexities of the nonlinear nature of the wind-to-power conversion, as well as to wind turbine siting, and turbine model and hub height selection issues, with the last ones strongly depending on local conditions. Leveraging probabilistic modeling techniques, such as Monte Carlo, this study quantifies the aggregated reliability of distributed wind power systems, facilitated through the capacity factor, using Greece as an example. Results underscore the influence of spatial complementarity and technical configuration on generation adequacy, offering a more robust basis for planning and optimizing future wind energy deployments, which is especially relevant in the context of increasing global deployment.