EURELECTRIC Conference
RENEWABLE ENERGY 2020: Opportunities and Challenges
7-8 May 2009, Hotel
Radisson Royal SAS, Brussels
Session II – GRIDS: Getting the New Renewables to the Consumer
Peter Birkner- Videoclip
“The future will be more green. It will also be
more electric”, EURELECTRIC Networks Committee Chairman Peter Birkner
told the audience as he opened the session on grids. As a 20% RES share in
total energy translates into 35% RES-electricity, meeting the 2020 target
will require “significant restructuring to today’s electric grid system,”
he pointed out. While smaller RES will be situated close to the consumer,
the larger installations will be in remote areas or offshore, which will
require long-distance transmission. Mr Birker highlighted the three main
challenges for the grid of the future: the “power transportation
challenge” ie ensuring sufficient capacity on the lines; the “power
quality challenge” - ensuring voltage stability; and the “power balancing
challenge” – safeguarding the stability of the system. He outlined what is
needed to meet these challenges, including better connection of the
markets, better physical connections, increasing use of energy storage
options, installation of additional peak power plants, plus moves towards
‘smarter’ grids and smart metering at customer premises.
We have to reinforce the grid as we are going from a fossil fuel base to a
more renewables base”,
including large offshore installations in the North Sea and high transit
flows to the customers, Wilhelm Winter of Transpower, who is
Project Manager of the European Wind Integration Study (EWIS), told the
conference. He presented the interim results of the EWIS study, whose aim
is to set out common European solutions to challenges posed by integrating
wind energy into the system, with the final report scheduled for delivery
by the end of 2009. The objectives and issues raised by the study include
speeding up consent procedures for connections and grid infrastructure,
improving balancing arrangements, and applying cost effective technology
solutions in order to maximise network capacity and flexibility. Mr
Winter explained that preliminary findings of the study for scenarios to
2015 show that while high wind generation can be accommodated in South
Europe, additional reinforcements and risk mitigation measures will be
needed in Northern Europe. The study is predicting significant overall
shortfalls in infrastructure on the 2015 horizon.
Frans Van Hulle - Videoclip
Frans Van Hulle, Technical Advisor for the European Wind Energy
Association (EWEA), presented the results of the ‘Trade Wind’ study - the
first Europe-wide wind integration study, which draws on seven years of
data from 138 ‘wind regions’ around the continent to identify barriers to
the large-scale integration of wind energy in European power systems. The
study shows that while there are wide fluctuations in available windpower
in a given region, integrating wind energy from wider and wider areas
smoothes out the curve considerably, so “aggregating wind energy strongly
increases its contribution to firm power capacity in the system,” Mr Van
Hulle explained. The conclusions of the study point to significant effects
of wind power integration on cross-border electricity flows after 2015,
and that strengthening the identified transmission corridors will “bring
high value to the power market.” A “dedicated meshed offshore grid would
have significant economic value,” Mr Van Hulle told the audience.
Bo Normark- Videoclip
300GW of wind energy production Europe - which would
equate to a 25% share for RES in total EU energy assuming a
business-as-usual scenario - “would have seemed impossible a few years
ago, now it’s a realistic target” for 2030, Bo Normark, President
of Power Circle, told the audience. He outlined the offshore ‘supergrid’
concept, which would “allow connection of offshore windpower, provide
interconnections for trading and permit the sharing of back-up power,”
reducing overall investment needs and creating a large area that would
enhance the stability of windpower generation, he explained, adding: “and
the smarter the grid, the better you can address the problems.” Mr Normark
pointed out that the current European grid was built for a different
approach than the current market-oriented system and warned that with the
expected massive additions of RES-power it could well collapse totally. He
underlined the advantages of High Voltage Direct Current transmission
lines, which offer 2-3 times as much capacity as Alternating Current lines
in the same physical space. Furthermore, HVDC VSC transmission lines (“HVDC
light”) have the additional advantage that they offer by far the most
efficient technology for control and solving transmission problems, in
addition to the possibility of placing them under ground. He argued that
the building of a “European Smart Supergrid” should move forward by a
stepwise introduction of HVDC VSC lines, starting with individual projects
which would then eventually be linked together by a combination of subsea,
underground, and overhead lines. “Europe can lead the way both in
transforming energy systems and building a stronger industrial base”,
concluded Mr Normark.
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