German Wind Power Experience

German electric utility E.ON handles more wind-generated electric power
than anyone else in the world, with:
"... an installed wind power capacity of over 7,000MW in the E.ON
Netz grid area. This acounted for over 40% of German wind power
capacities and more than the entire wind power capacity of the United
States."

E.ON has put out a brochure about their experience with wind power
(Wind Report 2005), downloadable at:
http://www.eon-netz.com/EONNETZ_eng.jsp

One of their principal conclusions from their substantial real-world
experience is that:
"Wind energy is only able to replace traditional power stations to a
limited extent. ... traditional power stations with capacities equal
to 90% of the installed wind power capacity must be permanently online
in order to guarantee power supply at all times."

Their other principal conclusions are (a) that wind power feed-in to
the grid can be forecast only to a limited degree, and (b) that wind
power needs an extensive grid infrastructure.

E.ON's experience with wind power was that the maximum feed-in to the
grid was around 85% of installed capacity; average feed-in was about
20% of installed capacity; and over half the year, feed-in was less
than 14% of installed capacity.

The issue of guaranteed capacity becomes more serious as the amount of
wind-power hooked to the grid increases, leading to declining returns
from further installations. Looking to the future, E.ON concludes:
"... in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW
(Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of traditional power production can
be replaced by these wind farms."

However, using that wind power will also require a grid expansion
costing 3 Billion Euro by 2020. Much of the report discusses the major
technical challenges of accommodating fluctuating wind-generated
electric power as an input to the grid - challenges which will
require advances in technology as well as further investments.

The reader is left with the obvious (but unstated) question - given
E.ON's experience, does it really make sense for others to try to use
wind-generated electricity to feed the power grid? If there is a place
for wind-power, is it rather as an off-grid source of power for some
form of energy storage?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: German Wind Power Experience
    ... an installed wind power capacity of over 7,000MW in the E.ON ... Netz grid area. ... from further installations. ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Nuclear Power
    ... you will also need a great deal of additional grid. ... The E.ON 2005 Wind Report identified three key operational ... "Wind power feed-in can only be forecast to a limited degree." ... although I just read about an apparent ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)