Value of wind
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Replacing the conventional plants with wind power generation plants, results in fuel-cost saving and emission reduction and is defined by “Value of Wind Power ”. Value of the wind can be assessed in very different ways with varying degrees of sophistication. It could be simply defined as just the amount of the energy which could be produced from a wind generator, nonetheless this is not an ideal model as it neglects additional costs imposed by wind variability. There are two other definitions for the value of wind with regard to intermittency. First it is the avoided cost of thermal power generators when using wind power. These are the operation costs (mainly fuel-costs) of thermal power stations as well as the fuel saved in electric boilers. The second definition is much wider, it includes all socio-economic effects of integrating wind compared with non-wind cases. For this we must calculate the socio-economic surplus (sum of consumer and producer surplus). When looking at the differences in the socio-economic surplus between reference and wind cases, we calculate the value of wind to the whole market. Higher values of wind will result in a more economic system, reducing the payback period of capital cost required to build the windfarm, and creating a less polluted environment. [1]