WIND POWER CAPACITY CREDIT ASSESSMENT FOR ETHIOPIA

Analysing the Advantageous Influence of Characteristic Diurnal Wind Distributions

on the Capacity Credit and the Power System of Ethiopia

Authors: Frank Umbach, Bungo Ezawa, Dr. Patric Kleineidam, Matthias Hermann
Lahmeyer International GmbH
Friedberger Straße 173
61118 Bad Vilbel
Germany
Tel: +49-6101-55-1278
Fax: +49-6101-55-1826

1. Summary
As an increasing wind energy capacity is introduced to power systems, the question of the capacity credit of wind
energy is of great interest to utilities, planners and investors. Various studies show that wind energy does have a
capacity credit with a height dependent on the daily and seasonal wind distribution and its correlation with the load.
Assessing wind as a generation resource with an intermittent, but predictable characteristic is a central issue in future
energy system planning.
Based on the example of Ethiopia it is shown how the special wind characteristics determine the capacity credit. The
daily and seasonal characteristics of wind speeds, strongly influenced by the solar radiation are analysed, and their
influence on the capacity credit are discussed. Furthermore the impact of wind energy on the energy system is
analysed.
It is shown that, due to the strong correlation of wind speeds and load, wind energy can reach a capacity credit
surpassing the capacity factor. For Ethiopia wind can play a substantial role in increasing the system reliability, while
at the same time reducing system costs.

2. Introduction
The calculation of the capacity credit of wind power and its use has been an ongoing discussion throughout the last
years. One of the fundamental problems when talking about the capacity credit is the definition and the applied
calculation approach [1].
One widely used approach is based on the calculation of the loss of load probability (LOLP) [3] with and without
introducing wind energy to the system, where the capacity credit is the capacity gained by the installation of wind
energy, while maintaining the same LOLP. The drawback of this approach is the necessity of very detailed data for
the power system, which is only possible to obtain if direct access to the utility’s data is possible. For this reason an
approach introduced by [2] has been adapted for the following calculation based mainly on hourly wind and demand
data. This approach defines the capacity credit as of a certain wind capacity available with a certain probability of
exceedance (PoE). Thus the capacity credit can either be given in MW of installed capacity or as a percentage of the
installed wind capacity.

Database
Lahmeyer International has been awarded by the GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit) to
conduct a feasibility study for the installation of up to 180 MW of wind power in Ethiopia. The feasibility study and
the results of this analysis are based on data collected within the GTZ organized TERNA Project and on data
provided by the Ethiopian electricity company EEPCo. TERNA stands for Technical Expertise for Renewable Energy
Application, and is a support program for the assessment of wind energy potentials.
Within the TERNA Program various wind measurement campaigns were conducted for one year on promising sites
throughout Ethiopia. The following calculations are based on wind data of three different sites throughout Ethiopia
measured for a full year and the simultaneous system load in Ethiopia.

3. Wind, Demand and Hydro Distribution in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia at many sites the wind distribution is governed by the strong solar radiation and the resulting thermal
wind. This is especially the case on the numerous high plateaus where updrafts cause strong wind.

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EWEC 2007, 7-10 May 2007, Milan, Italy, Wind Power Capacity Credit Assessment for Ethiopia
Seasonal Distribution
Due to these strongly solar governed winds, Ethiopia has very different wind speeds throughout the year. In contrary
to the wind the availability of water shows the opposite pattern throughout the year. Finally the load remains
comparably constant throughout the year. Figure 1 shows the annual change in available wind capacity, load and
water inflow into the Finchaa reservoir averaged per month. Finchaa reservoir is used here representative for the
Ethiopian hydro power situation.
350 70
- [MWh/h]

300 60

Wind Capacity [%]

250 50
Water Inflow Finchaa
Load [MW]

200 40
-

150 30

100 20

50 10

0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Months

Average Load Average Water Inflow at Finchaa Average Wind

Figure 1: Average load, water inflow and available wind capacity throughout the year

It is clearly visible how well hydro power and wind power complement each other. During the dry season wind
speeds are high while water inflows are low and vice versa during the rainy season, when wind speeds drop
significantly, due to the lack of direct solar radiation.

Diurnal Wind Distribution

Based on the same meteorological principle as the seasonal behavior the intra day distribution of wind speeds and
thus available wind capacity changes significantly based on the course of the sun and the season.

500 50
Wind Capacity [%]

400 40
Load [MW]

300 30

200 20

100 10

0 0
0 6 12 18
Time

Load Pattern Wind Distribution

Figure 2: Average load and average available wind capacity during the day

Figure 2 shows how strong the wind and demand curve match each other and the high availability of wind capacity in
the early evening hours, when the demand is high. It has to be remembered, that these values are averages for the
whole year. During the rainy season the average availability of wind hardly exceeds 20 %. Nevertheless as the
highest demand mainly occurs during the dry season, this does not alter the general situation.

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EWEC 2007, 7-10 May 2007, Milan, Italy, Wind Power Capacity Credit Assessment for Ethiopia
4. Capacity Credit Calculation
For the calculation of the capacity credit [2] has shown with various calculation comparisons in the USA that the
capacity credit (there called ELCC – Effective Load Carrying Capability) can be estimated rather precisely by
calculating the capacity factor for 30% of the hours with the highest load. In other words, the first 30% of the ordered
load duration curve. Another approach [4] is that the difference between the y-intercept of two ordered load duration
curves, one including wind and the other one without wind, represents the capacity credit. Here it is suggested to
analyze the steepness of the load duration curve and the ability of the power system to respond to peak loads and then
to decide which part of the load duration curve should be chosen for the analysis. Figure 3 shows the capacity factor
for different amounts of highest load hours.

65%
9h
60%
Capacity Factor

87 h
55%
219 h
50% 438 h
876 h
1314 h
45%

40% 2628 h = 30%

35%
250 300 350 400 450 500 550
Load [MW]
Capacity Factor at different Load Levels

Figure 3: Wind capacity factor for different shares of the load duration curve

It becomes evident, that during the hours of highest load the capacity factor is very high and drops continuously the
more hours are included into the calculation approaching the annual capacity factor of 34%.
As Ethiopia is a country with the serious need of additional capacity and regarding the fact that high demand is often
solved by load shedding, it is primarily important to concentrate on the highest load hours. For this reason in the
following the 87 hours with the highest load throughout the year are used to calculate the capacity credit. Figure 4
shows the probability of exceedance for this interval, with the lower curve representing the whole year and the upper
curve the dry season.

100
90
80
Wind Capacity [%]

70
50 %
60 58 75%
50
43 90%
40
30 30
20
10
0
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Probability of Exceedance
Capacity whole Year Dry-Season

Figure 4: Probability of exeedance of the available capacity for the whole year and the dry season

The graph shows that at least 43% of the installed capacity is available with a probability of 75%. The capacity credit
values for the dry season when additional capacity is even more important as water is getting scarce this value is even
higher. It becomes clear how well wind energy would support the Ethiopian power system and what great role it
could play as a peak load capacity in the expanding power system.

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EWEC 2007, 7-10 May 2007, Milan, Italy, Wind Power Capacity Credit Assessment for Ethiopia
5. Conclusion
The calculation of the capacity credit in Ethiopia with its strong diurnal wind characteristic implies not only technical
advantages, but wind energy would reduce the Ethiopian need for conventional peak load capacity and thus would
reduce investment costs for the expansion of the power system.
Similar wind behaviors can be observed by Lahmeyer International in many other countries along the sun belt of the
earth, showing the great potential of including capacity credit calculations into the economic assessment for wind
energy in these regions.

6. Main References

[1] GIEBEL, G. (2005): Wind Power has a Capacity Credit – A Catalogue of 50+ supporting studies. Internet source.
http://ejournal.windeng.net.

[2] MILLIGAN, M. (2002): Modeling Utility-Scale Wind Power Plants – Part 2: Capacity Credit. Internet source.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy02osti/29701.pdf.

[3] BILLINTON, R., ALLEN, R. (1996): Reliability Evaluation of Power Systems. 2nd edition, Plenum Press, New
York, 1996.

[4] KENNEDY, S.W. (2005): Wind power planning: assessing long-term costs and benefits. In: Energy Policy, issue
33 (2005) p.1661-1675.

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