The President of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) told delegates at the European Wind Energy Conference in Marseille yesterday “If the EU is to meet its CO2 reduction and renewables targets, improve security of supply and create real competition in the European power markets, we need to extend our power grids and change the way we operate them.”

The reality of a European ’super grid network’ becomes more important every year as the wind energy industry recognises an extended grid with changed operating procedures would both improve the EU’s grid network and allow larger amounts of wind energy generation onto the system.

The President pointed out that “At current fuel prices, electricity production costs from a new wind farm, coal plant and gas station are more or less the same. If a truly interconnected European grid existed and power markets were effective, the uncertainty of volatile carbon and fuel prices would ensure that wind which avoids these unknown quantities, would become the most cost-effective of the three“.

In the new Renewable Energy Directive, electricity from renewable sources has been guaranteed priority access to the grid which is very important for the economics of wind energy. There are however increasing issues with regard to a lack of grid capacity due to the way in which the grid has been constructed for centralised (rather than dispersed) electricity generation.

A new study by Tradewind “Integrating Wind” March 2009 tackles the issues surrounding Europe’s dependency on fossil fuels and the investment needed in electricity infrastructure if we are to hit the target of meeting 34% of EU electricity demand from renewable energy by 2020.

The study points out that “with ever-increasing amounts of wind energy in the system, new challenges arise for the functioning of the interconnected grid, especially for balancing, securing, cross-border transmission and market design“. The study says that when envisaging penetration levels of 20% of gross electric demand or more from wind energy, new directions are needed for design and operation of the grid network and electricity markets…” hence it is critical that the decision-making processes -- for example, on grid reinforcements, technical standards, market rules and so on -- are well thought through, resulting in consistent policy decisions.”