A variance analysis of the capacity displaced by wind energy in Europe

Wind energy generation distributed all over Europe is less variable than generation from a single region. To analyse the benefits of distributed generation, the whole electrical generation system of Europe has been modelled including varying penetrations of wind power. The model is chronologically simulating the scheduling of the European power plants to cover the demand at every hour of the year. The wind power generation was modelled using wind speed measurements from 60 meteorological stations, for 1 year. The distributed wind power also displaces fossil-fuelled capacity. However, every assessment of the displaced capacity (or a capacity credit) by means of a chronological model is highly sensitive to single events. Therefore the wind time series was shifted by integer days against the load time series, and the different results were aggregated. The some set of results is shown for two other options, one where the pump storage plants are used more aggressively and the other where all German nuclear plants are shut off NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data have been used to recreate the same averaged time series from a data set spanning 34 years. Through this it is possible to set the year studied in detail into a longer-term context. The results are that wind energy can contribute more than 20% of the European demand without significant changes in the system and can replace conventional capacity worth about 10% of the installed wind power capacity. The long-term reference shows that the analysed year is the worst case for wind power integration. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.