Analysis of the coordinated operation of a hydroelectric power plant and a wind farm in Patagonia

In this work an analysis of the coordinated operation between the wind farm (WF) El Angelito and the hydroelectric power station Futaleuftl, located in Chubut, Argentina, is carried out. With a power of 200MW, El Angelito would be the largest WF in the country. With this new generation, the elements of the system will not be able to handle both sources at nominal power. In particular, there would be a bottleneck in the line where the WF would be connected and in the transformer that connects the system to 500kV. To avoid this situation, a coordinated operation of both generation sources is evaluated. In this way, a heuristic algorithm is analyzed to minimize the wind and hydraulic discharge, maximizing the power generation under restrictions in the transmission system. Three modes of operation were analyzed. The obtained results, simulated in a year with real data, show the benefits of the coordinated operation.