Thanks to a reader for alerting me to a new report from the Netherlands Institute for International Relations, ‘Clingendael’. The institute has a new programme looking at what it calls "the issue of the growing mismatch between long-term energy needs, climate change visions and short-term market developments".
The report covers the question of just how much conventional power capacity is required to back up wind farm installations. Here are some excerpts from the conclusions:
Wind power has a low capacity credit (in NW Europe). This means that wind power does not significantly replace other generating capacity; alternative power sources need to be in place, together with new installed wind capacity for at least 80% of installed wind capacity, to ensure that there is sufficient back-up to meet market demand at times of reduced wind power supply. Most of this will have to come from conventional power plants. If hydro capacity from Norway is available, this back-up capacity could be reduced to approximately 70%.
The effectiveness of wind power to reduce CO2 emissions is directly related to the level of CO2 prices. In today’s energy market with low CO2 prices, new installed wind power tends primarily to replace gas-fired power, resulting in limited CO2 reduction, and thus becomes an expensive and less effective way of reducing CO2 emissions.