Feasibility analysis of wind power plants in GCC connected to GCC super grid

Abstract

The energy demand and the level of consumption in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations are increasing significantly due to socio-economic growth and rapid moving the populace forward out of traditional living into the lifestyle of a developed nation. Therefore, the concept of electrical interconnection was raised by GCC in early 80s to ensure security and stability of their local electrical networks. As energy security is an essential for the council members, GCC grid interconnections was built to cover in case of emergency outages. However, the balance of the capacity of the interconnector is not adequate to allow major exchanges of electrical energy in base load. The underutilization of the connection is a wasted opportunity in seizing the low hanging fruit such as renewable energy resources. Since the GCC region has enormous undeveloped solar and wind power resources, there is a potential to increase the capacity of the existed GCC interconnected grid to utilize it efficiently. Most of the work in this area are focused on utilizing solar energy while wind energy did not receive the same attention although of the great optional of wind power in GCC region. For example, countries, which are located at the central zone of Arabian Gulf waters (such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar) have annual wind power of 277, 300, 275 w/m2, respectively. This order of wind power is attractive for large-scale power production Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to provide the Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA) with a methodology of feasibility study for the wind power plant that could be connected to the GCC interconnected grid. The proposed feasibility study in this thesis is focused on utilizing the potential wind energy in GCC region to increase the capacity of the GCC interconnected grid to have it well- exploited. The methodology utilizes technical and economic study to select the best wind power plant suitable for connecting to the grid. Technically, wind power plant models and specifications were determined to guarantee efficient operation which was verified by using the software RETscreen. Also, it is important to check the economic validity of the wind power plants, therefore, economic modeling software; NPV, PBP and IRR, were used to make sure of its economic feasibility. Since the environmental impact has a crucial concern, GHG model was used to measure impact of wind power plant on the environment. In this thesis, eleven candidate locations around GCC countries were tested to check their feasibility, and nine out of them were successfully chosen with complete technical and economical specifications. The results were verified using RETScreen and Vestas was used to analyze the wind turbines. The result of the proposed study concludes that using the proper wind energy in GCC can contribute by about 13% of the energy demand in 2022 in GCC region. The contribution of this thesis is to provide an efficient systematic methodology for selecting, sizing, determining g the wind power plants in GCC region which can be hocked to the GCC integrated grid and operated efficiently and economically.