Integration of compressed air energy storage systems co-located with wind resources in the ERCOT transmission system

In this paper, we investigate optimal locations and capacity for integrating storage systems in the electric transmission grid to improve wind power production. The impacts on wind power production and conventional thermal generation due to operation of utility-scale storage systems are simulated. A compressed air energy storage (CAES) is chosen as an utility-scale storage technology, which can provide several hundred MWs of electric power. A mixed integer programming (MIP) is implemented for the mathematical formulation. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) wind, load data and its simplified transmission system are used for a case study. To mandate wind power production, we apply 20% goal for renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Operation of 1350 MW CAESs improves wind power production and RPS target achievements, however, thermal generation does not significantly decrease under the given simulation condition.