Estimating the Impact of Ocean Wave Energy on Power System Reliability with a Well-Being Approach

Ocean wave energy is a developing industry that provides many attractive qualities for utilities to meet future energy demand. Therefore, it is important to investigate and understand the impact that ocean wave energy has on power system reliability. Reliability assessment techniques have been applied to systems with variable amounts of wind penetration, but as of yet, no study has explored the impacts that ocean wave energy may have on the reliability of power grids. Our approach to this problem applies a sequential Monte Carlo (MC) technique coupled with a Well-Being analysis approach to capture the seasonal variations associated with the ocean and then calculate key loss-of-load indices. We benchmark this method on the IEEE Reliability Test System 1996 (RTS-96) and integrate synthesized ocean wave energy farms throughout the system. Our results suggest that wave energy results in a small decrease on the reliability of the power system, however this change does not result in additional failure states as compared to the base system. Additionally, we are able to mitigate marginal system states with a relatively small increase in system capacity.

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