RenewableS 2013 GlObal STaTUS RePORT - REN21

06 FEATURE: SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION
market regulations, including demand-side incentives, to cope
with increasing shares of wind power and the resulting cost
effects. It is enhancing and enforcing the power (and gas) grids,
setting up new transmission lines (some of which are being
installed underground, particularly at lower voltage levels) to
connect different parts of Denmark, connecting new offshore
wind farms, and enhancing connections with neighbouring
countries including Germany, the Netherlands, and particularly
Norway and its hydropower resources. 16
The Iberian Peninsula lacks sufficient interconnection capacity
to the north (i.e., France) for the grids of European neighbours
to help balance variable renewable energy. Only recently has
an agreement been reached to double the interconnection
capacity between Spain and France. Despite this shortcoming,
Spain i and Portugal ii are among the countries with the highest
wind power shares in Europe. 17 Both countries are dealing successfully
with the resulting challenges. In Portugal, hydropower,
and some bio-power (as well as some waste-to-energy plants)
provide the major share of the country’s flexible capacity. In
Spain, the main tool for dealing successfully with high shares
of wind and solar power is a special control centre (CECRE),
established in 2006. CECRE’s sole purpose is to monitor and
safely integrate the highest possible amount of electricity from
renewables. 18
Germany is in the process of “Energiewende” (energy transition
or turnaround), a transformation that started long before the
2011 decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022. The first
feed-in law was enacted in 1991, and the uptake of renewable
energy was significantly accelerated when the Renewable
Energy Sources Act (EEG) entered into force in 2000. By
granting priority grid access and priority dispatch to renewable
energy, the EEG facilitated a process of transforming the power
grid to accommodate increasing shares of renewable energy.
The obligation for wind turbines (and recently also for solar
PV) to provide system services (e.g., remote control by the grid
operator and scalable output) was enacted and implemented
in the 2004 and 2009 amendments to the law. 19 Renewables’
share of total consumption in the power sector increased from
6.8% in 2000 to 22.9% in 2012, with wind and solar contributing
more than half of this share. 20
For 2020, Germany’s targets are to meet at least 35% of
national electricity demand (80% by 2050) with renewables, to
provide more than 18% of the overall total final energy (more
than 60% in 2050) with renewables, and to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by 40% by 2020 (80–95% by 2050). The
process is labelled and planned as system transformation, to
be implemented in a cost-efficient way while maintaining a high
level of supply security. 21 Smart grids, grid extension, demand
response, strategic reserves, and/or capacity mechanisms
for balancing power are being discussed. An ordinance that
entered into force at the end of 2012 obliges operators of
strategically important power plants to keep them available
as reserve capacities for the power system. Discussion about
incentives for flexible capacities and/or capacity payments is
also ongoing. 22
China and India have the highest installed capacities of
variable renewables of any developing countries and have both
adopted ambitious targets to further increase the capacity and
related shares of renewable energy consumption. (See Policy
Landscape section.) China, India, and other countries with
rapidly increasing capacities and resulting shares of variable
renewables already face the challenge of integrating them into
existing energy systems, which are often weak and inflexible.
However, they have the opportunity to design infrastructure and
markets alongside their developing wind and solar capacity; to
integrate the power grid with dispatchable energy sources and
CHP; and to integrate electricity with other sectors such as solar
heating, electric vehicles, and other innovative products.
■■Outlook
The process of developing, enacting, and implementing
electricity systems with very high shares of renewables,
particularly variable renewables, is ongoing. Several scenarios
underline the possibility and viability of having an energy
supply based predominantly on renewable energy. 23 They have
been developed by high-level institutions, such as the IEA and
the European Commission, and they frequently inform policy
decisions. In December 2011, the European Commission
published an “Energy Roadmap 2050” showing that all
“decarbonisation scenarios” (those in compliance with the
European Union’s greenhouse gas reduction targets of minus
80–95% below 1990 levels by 2050) will be based on very high
shares of renewables—i.e., as much as 54–75% of final energy
consumption, and 59–83% of electricity supply, with variable
renewables playing a major role.
Of the 164 scenarios examined by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change in the Special Report on Renewable Energy
Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, the most ambitious scenario
with regard to the growth of renewable energy, improvements
in energy efficiency, and the resulting greenhouse gas
mitigation emphasised that implementation must be based on
clear and unambiguous policy decisions, including the removal
of fossil fuel and nuclear power subsidies (in all sectors,
including electricity, heating and cooling, and transport fuels),
in order to create a level playing field for renewable energy
and to avoid further costly lock-in of fossil- and nuclear-based
energy production. 24
System transformation will be the most efficient and least costly
means for achieving high renewable electricity shares with
variable resources. The technologies needed to achieve transformation
of the electricity system, from one based on thermal
baseload plants fired with fossil fuels to one with high shares of
variable renewables, are well understood. The requirements for
designing and operating a supply system to accommodate high
shares of variable renewables are also better understood, and
the potential economic costs and benefits have been demonstrated.
What is needed now is the political will to implement
them.
i In Spain, 32% of electricity was derived from renewables in 2012 (down from 33% in 2011), with 57% of that from wind, 13% from solar, and the rest
from dispatchable renewable sources including hydro and bio-power, per Red Eléctrica Corporación, Corporate Responsibility Report 2012 (Madrid:
2013), p. 60.
ii In Portugal, 42.7% of electricity was derived from renewables in 2012, with about half (50.5%) from wind, 1.8% from solar, and the rest mainly from
hydropower and biomass, per Direcção Geral de Energia e Geologia (DGEG), Renováveis, Estatísticas Rápidas 2012 (Lisbon: January 2013).
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