Generation expansion planning by considering energy-efficiency programs in a competitive environment

Restructuring of the electricity industry and the development of energy efficiency solutions are the two major developments of the recent power systems. Implementation strategies in the use of energy efficiency can be made by utilizing more energy-efficient equipment or increasing penetration rate of production of new sources of energy at the generating side. These new sources of energy can be renewable sources, especially wind resource and energy storage instruments such as grid-connected electric vehicles. The vehicles can be charged during the low load and discharged during peak load. In this study, wind resources and grid-connected electric vehicles are considered as an approach for energy efficiency strategies in generation expansion planning. But, because of high investment cost, great uncertainty of wind resources' productivity and uncertainty of their supportive policies no one will invest on them without proper supportive policies in a competitive environment. So support policies for wind resource are also considered. One of the fundamental problems of supportive policies is financial support in a competitive environment. Therefore, as an innovation of the paper, grid-connected electric vehicles is used to solve the problem. In the paper, the impact of these vehicles is considered in a way that they act integrated with wind resources and thus increases the capacity factor of wind resources. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.