Arif S. Malik

Power Generation Expansion Planning Including Large Scale Wind Integration: A Case Study of Oman

Many options can be effectively used to meet the future power needs of a country in ways which would be more economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially just. A least-cost generation expansion planning study is conducted to find the economic feasibility of large scale integration of wind farms in the main interconnected transmission system of Oman. The generation expansion planning software used is WASP which is restricted in its ability to model intermittent nature of wind. Therefore, a wind turbine is modeled as a thermal plant with high forced outage rate related to its capacity factor. The result of the study has shown that wind turbines are economically viable option in the overall least-cost generation expansion plan for the Main Interconnected System of Oman.

Energy fuel saving benefit of a wind turbine

The paper presents a study carried out to investigate the economics of wind turbine as an energy fuel saver. The load and the wind data is taken from a remote agricultural research station in Oman. The station is provided electricity with diesel-engine generating units. The annual peak load and minimum load recorded at the site is 130 kW and 28 kW respectively. The annual average wind speed at the site is 5.7 m/s. A 50 kW wind turbine is selected to demonstrate the economic feasibility of the turbine as a fuel saver. The results show that wind energy utilization is an attractive option with total specific cost of the selected wind turbine at 9.3 c/kWh at 10% discount rate comparing to diesel generation operating cost of 10.3 c/kWh, considering the capital cost of diesel units as sunk. The simple payback period of the turbine is 8.5 years.

A case study of local integrated resource planning

This paper reports the results of a local integrated resource planning (LIRP) study conducted for the Philippines. Based on the investment plans for serving loads at distribution feeders our key finding is that distributed resources (DR) are cost effective alternatives to supply capacity expansion for Cagayan Electric Power and Light Co. (CEPALCO), an investor-owned power distribution utility company operating in the Southern Philippines. The total cost savings for the selected feeder on which LIRP was performed are about 19 million Pesos (about half a million US dollars, 1998) over a 10-year period.

Integrated resource planning with consideration of dynamic costs of thermal units

This paper presents a methodology based on an equivalent load duration curve (ELDC) and frequency and duration approaches to assess the economic benefits of demand-side management (DSM) load impact in terms of avoided energy production costs and avoided start-up and shut-down (cycling) costs of thermal units. The proposed method is applied to IEEE reliable test system (RTS) data to assess the benefits of DSM load impacts. The sensitivity of avoided energy cost and avoided cycling cost is calculated with a varying generating capacity reserve margin in the system. From a utility point of view, the loss of revenue due to DSM measures is also worked out with certain assumptions and sensitivity of the revenue loss due to DSM actions is again tested with a different generating capacity reserve margin in the system. The study finds that the avoided cycling cost is a major benefit of DSM measures. The study also finds that the real revenue loss is far less than the apparent revenue loss seen by the utility as the benefit of reduction in start-up and shut-down costs is not realised in the loss of revenue calculations.

Cost of PV electricity in Oman

Utilizing solar radiation data of 25 locations in Oman, RETScreen software is used to study the economic prospects of solar energy. A solar PV power plant of 5-MW is considered at each of the 25 locations. The results show that the renewable energy produced each year from the PV power plant varies between 9000 MWh at Marmul to 6200 MWh at Sur while the mean value is 7700 MWh of all the 25 locations. The capacity factor of PV plant varies between 20% and 14% and the cost of electricity varies between 210

Dynamic generating costs in DSM planning

/MWh and 304

Evaluation of renewable energy projects using multi-criteria approach

/MWh for the best location to the least attractive location, respectively. The study shows that the PV energy at the best location is competitive with diesel generation without including the externality costs of diesel. Renewable energy support policies that can be implemented in Oman are also discussed.

Justice to nature and to the disadvantaged

This paper deals with cost savings resulting from DSM, i.e. reductions in the number and cost of shut-downs and start-ups of generators. The proposed methodology applied to a test-data system yields savings of 28%. The total avoided costs are also estimated and it is pointed out on the basis of a total resource cost that the omission of these dynamic benefits can result in a bias against a DSM program and may lead to a wrong policy decision.

Investigation of wind resources in Timimoun region, Algeria

Many renewable energy (RE) projects cannot compete with conventional energy projects in terms of economics alone. However, if externality costs of competing technologies are carefully evaluated and taken into account the renewable energy projects are likely to be selected on economic basis. But the problem is the evaluation of externality costs which are not always easy to assess. One way to overcome this problem is to use multi-criteria approach instead of just economics as a single criterion. This paper presents the methodology and results of ranking RE alternatives based on several important criteria, for energy problems in an island in Oman where renewable resources can be used as supplementary energy supply.

Minimizing the Environmental Impact of the Envisaged Expansion in Power Generation in Main Interconnected System of Oman

This article argues against using the practice of discounting and shows that both the time preference and the opportunity cost of capital arguments, put forward to justify discounting, are in conflict when we take the holistic approach to the environment. Both the time preference and the opportunity cost concepts are the tools to support the institution of interest. Using a hierarchical systems approach it is argued that in order to save the super hierarchical system (biosphere as a whole in our case) the contemporary economic system has to renew so that the humanity and global ecosystem may persist.