Windenergie in Deutschland und Europa

Author: Linnemann, Thomas; and Vallana, Guido | Economics, Europe, Germany, Grid, Technology

Translate: FROM English | TO English

[Wind energy in Germany and Europe: Status quo, potentials, and challenges in the baseload supply of electricity – Part 1: Developments in Germany since 2010]

English Abstract:

In Germany, the installed nominal capacity of all wind turbines has increased eightfold over the past 16 years to 50,000 megawatts today. In the 18 most important European countries using wind energy today, the nominal capacity rose twelvefold to more than 150,000 megawatts.

One essential physical property of wind energy is its large spatiotemporal variation due to wind speed fluctuations. From a meteorologic point of view, the electrical power output of wind turbines is determined by weather conditions with typical correlation lengths of several hundred kilometres. As a result, the total wind fleet output of 18 European countries extending over several thousand kilometres in both north-south and east-west directions is highly volatile and exhibits a strong intermittent character. An intuitively expected significant smoothing of this wind fleet output to an degree that would allow a reduction of backup power plant capacity, however, does not occur. In contrast, a highly intermittent wind fleet power output showing significant peaks and minima is observed not only for a single country, but also for the whole of the 18 European countries. Wind energy therefore requires a practically 100% backup. As the (also combined) capacities of all known storage technologies are (and increasingly will be) insignificant in comparison to the required demand, backup must be provided by conventional power plants, whose economics are fundamentally impaired in the absence of capacity markets.

Windenergie in Deutschland und Europa: Status quo, Potenziale und Herausforderungen in der Grundversorgung mit Elektrizität – Teil 1: Entwicklungen in Deutschland seit dem Jahr 2010

Thomas Linnemann und Guido S. Vallana
VGB PowerTech, Essen, Deutschland

VGB PowerTech 6 | 2017

Download original document: “Windenergie in Deutschland und Europa”

This material is the work of the author(s) indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this material resides with the author(s). As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Queries e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding

(via Stripe)

(via Paypal)

Share:

[ Short URLs: https://wind-watch.org/doc/?p=4886 | http://wndfo.net/D4886 ]