In just a few weeks Copenhagen will be a hive of wind energy activity as EWEA’s annual conference and exhibition gets going. In the run-up to the event, the EWEA blog spoke to Ana Estanqueiro, Chair of a session aimed at discovering how to integrate large amounts of wind power into Europe’s grids…
What are the main obstacles in Europe to integrating large amounts of wind power?
The main barriers these days are much less on the “hardware” side (access to transmission and distribution grids) and much more on the “software” side: grid-operation principles and electricity market rules. These are currently not well adapted to wind power and need to evolve in order to smoothly incorporate wind-powered electricity. Today, difficulties related to grid access are largely for offshore projects where investments are extremely high and usually need to be coordinated with other economic sectors.
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In just under one month, Copenhagen will be home to Europe’s biggest wind energy conference and exhibition – EWEA 2012. The EWEA blog caught up with Emmanuelle Raoult, Chair of a session which delves into Europe’s progress on meeting the 20% renewable energy by 2020 target, to find out the current state of play…
What are National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs) and why are they important?
NREAPs are detailed roadmaps of how each EU Member State expects to reach its legally binding 2020 targets. These are essential for Europe’s energy future, and can deliver the strong and stable regulatory framework that is needed to develop renewable energy in Europe. Furthermore, NREAPs give the renewables industry ‘business case certainty’ – a key driver to attract investment in renewable energy. As wind energy projects are 20+ year investments, decreasing the risk of regulatory volatility is paramount to achieving an acceptable return on investment. NREAPs – if properly implemented – help reduce uncertainty.
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Ireland is on the threshold of becoming an exporter of energy. Having traditionally imported fuel or burned locally-produced peat to provide energy, Ireland is now looking at bringing in €6bn a year in export revenues in less than a decade.
The source of this potential “windfall” is the increasing number of wind farms around the country. This growth is encouraged by the government, whose Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte today announced the opening of a new support scheme for renewable energy at the Irish Wind Energy Association’s annual conference in Dublin.
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This is an excerpt of a post by Heikki Willstedt, director of energy policy, AEE. To read the full post (in Spanish) click here.
Oil has reached €90 a barrel and, when the embargo on Iran becomes effective, there are analysts who predict it will rise to €100 a barrel. Energy imports cost more in Spain than they do in emerging countries, so we cannot improve either our competitiveness or our trade balance deficit. In Spain there are no indigenous oil resources, but we do have the wind to generate electricity. A Spanish wind turbine of 2 MW generates the energy equivalent to 7,000 barrels a year. Wind is the Spanish oil.
The International Monetary Fund defines an oil shock as a 26% or more increase in the price of oil. We have had three: 2008, 2010 and 2011. The current price of oil price in Euros is at a historic high. Just remember that in July 2008 a barrel of oil reached €84 a barrel. We are now 7% above the previous peak price.
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A new report claims that the UK could meet its 2020 carbon reduction targets at a lower cost by building new nuclear plants and gas-fired power stations instead of wind farms, but the report has met strong criticism.
The study, published by AF Consult and picked up by the Sunday Times newspaper, says that opting for new nuclear and gas would be £45 billion (€54 billion) cheaper than wind farms, despite the fact that in reality new nuclear power plants take years to build and gas prices are pushing up energy prices. The UK government said recently that average bills rose by €537 between 2004 and 2011 and 64 % of that increase was down to rises in gas prices. Meanwhile, just 6.5% of the increase was attributed to support for renewable energy.
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