SYNERGIES BETWEEN THE RENEWABLE ENERGIES

The combined operation of hydro plants and wind farms offers a number of opportunities for utilities and system operators. Effective combined operation of both resources can be more advantageous than if each resource is considered separately:

• Hydropower benefits wind power: As wind power has to be used as it is generated, hydropower can act as a storage solution that releases the power when the wind is not blowing.
• Wind power benefits hydropower: The power produced by the wind farms increase the firm capacity of the interconnected hydro plants.

The combined operation of wind and hydro saves water, increases profits and reduces the impacts of interconnecting intermittent wind resources.
In some cases throughout the world, the highest seasonal winds coincide with the periods where the hydro resources are at the yearly lowest. In such decisive cases, the harnessing of energy form complimentary renewable energy sources increases overall resource adequacy, reliable supply and firm capacity.
With the use of the state-of-the-art forecasting and resource assessment models for both, wind and hydro resources, 3TIER has studied the interaction of wind and hydro resources in different regions. The bottom-line in one of those cases is that wind projects do not need to be dispersed as far from one another as hydro projects to decrease seasonal and annual scale climate related risk. Simply put — wind droughts cover a smaller geographic region than precipitation droughts.