Offshore Electricity Infrastructure in Europe - European Wind Energy ...

FiGuRe 13.2: FRequency OF Relative pOweR chanGes in 1 hOuR inteRvals FROm all expected euROpean OFFshORe
wind FaRms in 2030 (127Gw), FROm all expected euROpean OnshORe wind FaRms in 2030 (267Gw) and the sum OF all
expected On&OFFshORe capacities in euROpe in 2030
Occurence
(hours per year)
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
1,000 hours, whereas at the EU level, the maximum
wind power produced is 70% of the total installed
capacity and the minimum wind power production is
never below 10%. This demonstrates how aggregation
at the European level results in increasingly steady
wind power output, although there are still periods
with low or high wind power production.
OffshoreGrid – Final Report
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8
EU onshore power EU sum of on&offshore EU offshore power
It is important to highlight that this large-scale wind
smoothing effect is only possible if power exchange
can be realised across large areas and if the power
exchange is not restricted. The grids play a crucial role
of interconnecting wind power plant outputs installed
at a variety of geographical locations, with different
weather patterns.
FiGuRe 13.3: example OF smOOthinG eFFect by GeOGRaphic dispeRsiOn. the FiGuRe cOmpaRes the hOuRly Output OF wind
pOweR capacity in thRee aReas, includinG all expected OnshORe and OFFshORe wind FaRms in the yeaR 2030
Power
(% of inst. capacity)
100
80
60
40
20
0
700 800 900 1,000 1,100 1,200 1,300
BeNeLux+DE+FR Belgium EU27+NO+CH
129