Powering Europe - European Wind Energy Association

• Network reinforcement to enable the connection of
large amounts of wind and other renewables and
conventional generation, and the development of
new interconnectors.
• Flexible electric loads: in addition to a flexible plant
portfolio, electric loads also need to be more flexible.
Besides domestic demand side management,
electric vehicles (EVs) could complement wind generation
by storing electricity and providing flexible
demand.
In the meantime, the Irish government has set a target
for electric vehicles of 10% of the total by 2020 with
2,000 on the road by 2012 and 6,000 by 2013.
6.6 Netherlands
The study [Ummels 2009] performed simulations for
a range of wind power penetrations of 0-12 GW in the
Netherlands, with 12 GW supplying approximately 33%
of the Dutch annual consumption. Technical limits to
the system integration of wind power in the Dutch system
have been identified and the economic and environmental
impacts of wind power on system operation
quantified. Furthermore, the opportunities for energy
storage and heat boilers for the integration of wind
power in the Dutch system have been explored.
The high reserve levels provide sufficient ramping capacity
for balancing wind power variability in addition
to existing load variations, provided that accurate updates
of wind power output and a continuous re-calculation
of unit commitment and economic despatch are
made. Although the additional variations introduced by
wind power can be integrated, and do not present a
technical problem, limits for wind power integration increasingly
occur during high wind and low load periods.
Depending on the international market design, significant
amounts of wind power may have to be exported
to prevent minimum load problems (Figure 9).
The integration of wind power benefits from postponed
gate closure times on international markets, as international
exchange may be optimised further when
chApTEr 3 powersystemoperationswithlargeamountsofwindpower
improved wind power predictions become available.
The simulation results show that wind power production
reduces total system operating cost, mainly by
saving fuel costs. International exchange is shown to
be of the utmost importance for wind power integration,
especially at high penetration levels. As such,
possibilities for international exchange – especially the
reinforcement of the NorNed interconnector between
Norway and the Netherlands - should be regarded as
a promising alternative for the development of energy
storage in the Netherlands itself. The results quantify
the importance of the larger German system for the integration
of wind power into the Dutch system.
6.7 European Wind Integration
Study
Under the umbrella of the former organisations ETSO
and UCTE, 14 European System Operators started the
European Wind Integration Study (EWIS) in 2007 to investigate
the economic integration of wind energy into
the transmission systems for the 2015 scenario with
10% wind energy penetration in Europe. Although an
‘Optimistic’ scenario with 185 GW installed wind capacity
was considered, the best estimate scenario had
140 GW of installed wind energy capacity. Although it
focused on integration solutions, the study also looked
into other system operational issues, such as the required
balancing reserves. Representing the wind diversity
that can be exploited using the transmission network
and the sharing of balancing measures that are
possible between countries, EWIS models have shown
how the operational costs associated with addressing
wind variability are expected to be small compared
to the overall benefits. The additional balancing costs
would amount to some €2.1/MWh of wind produced in
the best estimate scenario, and €2.6/MWh in the ‘Optimistic’
wind scenario, corresponding to no more than
5% of the calculated wind benefits in terms of reduced
fuel and CO2 emission costs.
Summary and key messages
• Ways of helping integrate large amounts of wind
power into the power system include all possible
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