Last week the European Commission said: "The EU pays the price for its outdated and poorly interconnected energy infrastructure." Today the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) publishes a new report with a vision for a modern renewable energy power system, which sets out how the grid can integrate increasing amounts of wind energy.
'Powering Europe', launched today at the GRIDS 2010 conference and exhibition in Berlin, organised by EWEA, argues there are no major technical barriers—but there are major economic benefits—to integrating large amounts of fuel- and pollution-free wind energy into Europe's electricity grid.
The new report identifies infrastructure and markets as the two key barriers to hugely increasing the amount of wind power in Europe's electricity supply.
In order to deliver the onshore and offshore wind energy from where it is produced to where it will be consumed, Europe needs extended, upgraded and better connected grids, and fair and effective competition in a truly internal European market in electricity, the report says.
The economic benefits of creating a single market in electricity and improving the infrastructure are substantial, according to the report. The benefits of a better interconnected grid include a €1,500 million annual reduction in the total operational costs of power generation, due to increased availability of all generation capacity.
The benefit of integrating 265 Gigawatt (GW) of wind into Europe's grids by 2020, compared to no further growth in wind power capacity, would be a saving of €41.7 billion per year in the cost of electricity.
The report also reveals that flexibility will need to be a key feature of European power systems in the future.Smart grids will be needed to allow management of demand as well as improved management of supply, and largely national grids will have to be better interconnected. The EWEA's report shows how Denmark, Germany, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands have managed their power systems much more flexibly than in the past.
