Impact of high wind power penetration into power systems with reverse osmosis desalination plants taking Kingdom of Bahrain as a case study

This study is based on the Bahraini government's interest in the construction of largescale renewable energy projects in Bahrain. This thesis investigates the impact of integrating a high penetration of wind power into Bahrain's power system. It includes wind and site assessment and a study of the correlation between wind power and power demand. The power system is analysed before and after wind integration covering different wind penetration levels. In order to mitigate against the possible impact of high levels of wind power, the operation of reverse osmosis stations is modelled as a means of providing additional grid balancing. The geographical distribution of wind speed (the wind atlas) for the kingdom of Bahrain is presented, based on measured data and on calculations undertaken using WAsp and Matlab. The data used were recorded by the Meteorological Directorate using a weather station at Bahrain International Airport. The data were taken on an hourly basis for a period of ten years. These data indicate an annual mean wind speed of 6.93 m/s at 60 m height and mean Weibull scale and shape parameters C and k of 7.80 m/s and 1.79 respectively. This suggests that the area has a good wind resource. The wind atlas shows that several locations in the less populated central and southern regions of the main island of the archipelago of Bahrain are potentially suitable for wind energy production. [Continues.]