Grid Capacity and Upgrade Costs

Sammanfattning: The aim of the study is to analyze the possibility of how and where wind farms should be integrated on the electrical grid. The challenges mainly concern grid capacity and transmission losses. Economic factors will be regarded as well. To fulfill the aim, the Skellefteälven river in Sweden is selected as study object. A regional grid along the river is thereupon simulated with regards to five existing hydro power plants, four electrical consumption points, and the national grid. Additionally, four wind farms are placed on probable sites around the grid. Considering the large amount of data to be calculated in this study, a grid model assembled through numerical analysis in MATLAB is henceforth deemed optimal. Through load flow simulation, the voltage variations and power losses are calculated. Hence, the costs of the losses is found. The investment costs for upgrading the grid are also determined. As the results show, an upgrade of the electrical grid certainly requires a relatively large investment sum. Nevertheless, the return of the project will eventually surpass the initial costs. Accordingly, there are economic benefits of investing in upgrading the grid capacity.