The phrase
"wind penetration" refers to the amount or percentage of electricity produced by wind power that is integrated into a power grid or system. It indicates how much of the total energy consumed comes from wind sources.
Full definition
At
wind penetration levels of 2,000 MW (20 %) on the PacifiCorp system, the average integration costs were $ 5.50 / MWh, consisting of an incremental reserve component of $ 2.50 and an imbalance cost of $ 3.00.
It seems like there should be many more studies, especially given the increase in
wind penetration of electricity networks in Germany, UK and Ireland.
On the cost side,
at wind penetrations of up to 20 % of system peak demand, it has been found that system operating cost increases arising from wind variability and uncertainty amounted to about 10 % or less of the wholesale value of the wind energy [2].
Renewables growth is set to continue unabated as Beijing has indicated its commitment to save floundering solar companies while maintaining feed - in - tariff support (here are the 2015 and 2020 renewable energy targets); though, ensuring adequate grid connection will be a perennial challenge as
wind penetration increases.
The announcement marks the highest
quarterly wind penetration in ERCOT's history and underscores the market challenges facing the coal industry in Texas, where power plants consumed some 86 million tons of the black mineral in 2015, or more than double the next largest coal - consuming state.
The two points for Greennet Germany at the
same wind penetration level reflect that balancing costs increase when neighbouring countries get more wind (the same applies for Greennet Denmark).
The bottom lines for Canada are that 35 per
cent wind penetration is achievable (we're at five per cent of electricity demand today), system reliability issues can be addressed, new wind facilities will ensure significant electricity production cost savings while reducing emissions, and the cost of supportive inter-provincial transmission investments can be recovered quickly.
This study modelled power grids in the United States and Canada under four scenarios (see figure 1 - 2) with
wind penetration levels ranging from five per cent to 35 per cent of forecast annual system load energy in 2025:
From the cost estimates presented in the investigated studies it follows that
at wind penetrations of up to 20 % of gross demand (energy), system operating cost increases arising from wind variability and uncertainty amounted to about 1 — 4 $ / MWh of wind power produced (Fig. 5).
There doesn't seem to be any real world data for
high wind penetrations, which is not surprising as Germany, a wind power leader, has only about 10 % of (annual average) power coming from wind, and Denmark is effectively part of a much larger grid (by virtue of interconnection).
Craig Carter of Verve Energy informed me by email on 2011/04/04 that «Verve Energy was the principal contractor for the project to install the wind turbine, re-automate the existing diesel power station, add two 320kW low load diesels to increase
wind penetration and to automate the control of the desal plant to use excess wind energy for water production.»
Wind penetration levels continue to increase rapidly.
In Denmark the TSO has estimated the impacts of increasing
the wind penetration level from 20 % to 50 % (of gross demand) and concluded that further large scale integration of wind power calls for exploiting both, domestic flexibility and international power markets with measures on the market side, production side, transmission side and demand side -LRB-[19] and [20]-RRB-.
Incremental reserves included the cost associated with installation of additional operating reserves to maintain system reliability at higher levels of
wind penetration, recognizing the incremental variability in system load imposed by the variability of wind plant output.
For a small part of an interconnected system, a wind integration study stating a high penetration level can also be misleading if
the wind penetration in neighbouring areas is low and interconnection capacity plays a major part in integration.
Very high
wind penetrations are not achievable in practice due to the increased need for power storage, the decrease in grid reliability, and the increased operating costs
You say that 8 %
wind penetration is a serious problem in Germany when South Australia gets about a third of its electricity from wind and solar.
Dr David Osmond and Luke Osborne have written an informative paper on «Peaking Capacity, CO2 - e Emissions and Pricing in the South Australian Electricity Grid with High
Wind Penetration» that deals with this point.
An earlier EWEA Tradewind study found that, for the 2020 medium scenario (200 GW, 12 %
wind penetration), aggregating wind energy production from multiple countries strongly increased the capacity credit, the amount of capacity that can be relied on to meet peak demand, almost doubled it to 14 %, which they say corresponds to approximately 27 GW of firm power in the system.