122% Wind Power?: A Postcard from the Future of Energy

Renewable electricity records are falling every day. In early October, Germany recently hit a 59 percent renewable peak, Colorado utility Xcel Energy peaked at 60 percent wind at the beginning of the year, and Spain got its top power supply from wind for three months leading into 2013.

But that’s chump change compared with Denmark. According to data from Energinet, the national grid operator, wind power has produced 30 percent of gross power consumption to date in 2013. This includes over 90 hours where wind produced more than all of Denmark’s electricity needs, peaking at 122 percent on October 28, at 2:00 a.m. 

And Denmark has plans to get to 50 percent more wind by 2020, creating even bigger hourly peaks. Energinet predicts the country may hit as many as 1,000 hours per year of power surplus.


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3 2013 power data from Energinet.dk shows wind (red) and total demand (blue)

To champions of renewables, this is validation that a clean energy future is possible and that the transition is already underway. These regions also give insight into what is to come in the U.S., and what needs to change to keep a reliable and affordable power system as clean energy grows.

As part of America’s Power Plan, we have developed a series of “postcards from the future,” describing places like Denmark that are already grappling with a high-renewables future.

Studies and real-world experience are underscoring that there are many tactics available to deal with the variability of wind and solar, and that these tactics are largely substitutes for each other.

While energy storage comes to mind first for many people, the truth is that the grid has functioned just fine with very little storage. Power system operators have to deal with variability all the time, with or without renewables. Demand fluctuates with the weather, time of day, social activities, and industrial operations. And supply varies unexpectedly too, such as when a power plant breaks down. The fluctuations of wind and solar, especially at moderate levels, are just one more variable -- one that may or may not add to overall variability, depending on the system and timing.

Power system engineers use a whole suite of tools to match supply and demand, both minute-to-minute and over longer time frames. The most obvious example is a dispatchable power plant, like a gas turbine. But they also benefit from bigger balancing areas (trading power with neighbors), more transmission connections to reduce congestion, faster-acting fossil power plants, direct load control and demand response, targeted energy efficiency, and curtailment of wind and solar plants.

Hydro power and even fossil fuels are the traditional forms of energy storage, but many more are emerging, such as using power to heat district heating systems, compressed air, batteries and flywheels, and charging electric cars during the renewable peak.

It is increasingly common to treat wind power as a controllable generator, rather than just letting it go full out. System operators in New York, Texas and the Midwest direct wind farm owners to submit five-minute forecasts of output, and ramp up and down if necessary to meet system demands, just like conventional generators. The Midwest ISO enforces this with a “dispatchable intermittent tariff.”

So how can Denmark be 122 percent wind-powered? Where does the extra power go?

Denmark is part of an integrated regional grid with the Scandinavian countries and parts of Germany. They have a constant trade with utilities in the region, especially hydro plants in Norway.

As renewables grow and as Denmark attempts to phase out fossil fuels altogether by 2050, the country is aggressively adopting smart grid technologies, leading Europe in research and demonstration projects on a per-capita basis. The island of Bornholm will be a test bed, with extensive smart grid and renewable energy deployment. Demand response is beginning to grow, though in a different form than in the US. Denmark also has big goals for electric cars, and has exempted them from the 180 percent sales tax applied to gas and diesel vehicles.

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And has contributed 30% of gross power this year. That should be the headline.

In a report on "wear and tear hit wind farms" it states in part-
'This decline in performance means that it is rarely economic to operate wind farms for more than 12 to 15 years. ' This was for the UK.

At "other important findings" it found at-

a.  The decline in the performance of Danish offshore wind farms is greater than that of UK onshore wind farms. 

The neodymium magnets, which create great pollution in the manufacture in China, require replacement. Remanufacturing of the magnets creates almost the same amount of pollution as original manufacture.

Wind Energy the official website of Denmark, says that it is windy in Denmark. Now if a windy place can only produce 30% of its energy on average from wind farms, it is not a good look. There are apparently some 6,000 wind turbines.

Wind farms don't really provide any practical purpose at all apart from assauging the kooky climate change cults global warming guilt, as long as there is a wind farm on a hill somewhere providing 9/10ths of f#ck all difference to anything the cult will be satisfied, just as the Mayans were satisfied when they sacrificed a virgin. 

lee wrote on Nov 17^th, 2013 at 3:23pm:


Do you honestly think they are going to stop at that? What do you have against renewable energy?

lee wrote on Nov 17^th, 2013 at 5:44pm:


How does that compare with Coal Fired Power Stations in Australia? What percentage of rated capacity do they generate most of the time?

OK, close enough - we'll talk about it, but you haven't answered the question. I'll make it easy for you. Fill in the blanks:

Let's see Coal Fired Power Stations in Australia provide __% of the average power. But, on occasions, can provide __% of required power.

Do you think the figure is higher or lower than Wind generation in Denmark?

I have no beef with Green energy. The pollution from manufacture of neodymium magnets does not make it Green.

Apart from the headline story, what can you see that would impact on the proposal?

edit: pollution is pollution whether it be  SO2, Shells leaching CO2 into the water or neodymium.

Couldn't see anything there on neodymium. I may have missed it; but I don't think so.