Reliable Power, Wind Variability, and Offshore Grids in Europe

Brian Hurley, and Paul Hughes, Airtricity Dr. Gregor Giebel, Risø National Laboratory

Company Overview

• Founded in 1997

• 250 Employees

• 45,000+ Customers

• ~200MW’s Generation capacity – 10 Windfarms by December 2004

• Under development and in pipeline 4000GW

• Operations in Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, U.K., USA,

North Sea, and Irish Sea.

Wind patterns over Europe

CONTEXT

1. Different mix of conventional plant as new conventional plant is added.

 2. Older conventional plant can be refurbished with a

view to be used as a cheap form of "storage”.

3. Additional interconnection will be coming available inter country and inter regional.

4. Specific interconnection of regions to capture of the geographical dispersion effect for wind.

 5. ”Intelligent " grid

Geographical Dispersion Effect

Wind has Capacity Credit

Source: G. Giebel, On the Benefits of Distributed Generation in Europe, VDI-Verlag 2001

European average wind power generation between 1965 and 1998,

as an average over 60 well-distributed sites

Ref: G.Giebel

Scenarios

6 Thames Est.

7 Thames Est. + Baltic Sea

8 Thames Est. + Baltic Sea + Orkney

9 Thames Est. + Baltic Sea + Orkney + Celtic Sea

10 Thames Est. + Baltic Sea + Orkney + Celtic Sea + Trafalgar

11 Thames Est. + Baltic Sea + Orkney + Celtic Sea + Trafalgar + Mediterranean

7 Thames Est. + Baltic Sea + Orkney + Celtic Sea + Trafalgar + Mediterranean + Irish Sea

Change in Power

Typical 24Hour Forecast

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

29-Sep 1-Oct 3-Oct 5-Oct 7-Oct 9-Oct 11-Oct 13-Oct 15-Oct 17-Oct 19-Oct

Power [MW]

24hr Forecast Actual

Case Wind speed m/s

Capital cost generation per MWh

Capital cost transmission per MWh

Total Capital cost at load centres per MWh

High Wind Area (Onshore) 7.07m/s at 60m*

379 0 379

Medium wind area (Onshore) 6.45m/s at 60m*

450 0 450

Low wind area (Onshore) 5.53 m/s at 60m*

633 0 633

South Irish Sea to French coast 8.5m/s at 100m

512 237 749

South Irish Sea to French coast 10m/s at 100m

414 192 606

North Sea South to Germany 8.5m/s at 100m

510 206 716

North Sea South to Germany 10m/s at 100m

413 167 580

North Sea North to Mid Germany >10m/s at 100m

<413 <167 <580

Baltic to Mid Germany 8.5m/s at 100m

510 185 695

Baltic to Mid Germany 10m/s at 100m

419 210 629

Thames Estuary ~9m/s at 100m

467 160 627

Total capital costs at load centres per MWh

10GW Investigation

Locations Latitude Longitude Capacity (MW) UK (Scotland) 56.2 -2 1,097 NL (The Netherlands) 52.2 5.7 1,186 DE (Northern Germany) 52.2 9.5 17,500 NS (North Sea) 56.2 3.8 10,000

10GW Investigation

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

-1100-1000-900-800-700-600-500-400-300-200-1000

100 200300 400500 600700 8009001000

Power [MW]

Frequency

UK

UK+NS

10GW Investigation

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

-1200-1100-1000-900-800-700-600-500-400-300-200-1000

100 200300 400500 600700 80090010001100

Power [MW]

Frequency

NL

NL+NS

10GW Investigation

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

-17000-15000-13000-11000-9000-7000-5000-3000-10001000300050007000900011000130001500017000

Power [MW]

Frequency

DE

DE+NS

10GW Investigation Conclusion

The addition of the North Sea 10GW power to both the UK and Netherlands could almost eliminate the variability entirely. The proportion of the counts in the 0-100MW bin where there was no change in power over the 6-hour interval:

UK77%

NL69%