Lessons Learned Along Europe’s Road

Good timing on this piece as we just returned from France, having traveled from down South to the very top of the country and attest its beauty and heavy investments in clean energy and preservation of natural resources (including amazing, unforgettable historic sites).

This proves once again that there is no single answer to a transformation away from fossil fuel and the building of a brand new green economy.  Most of Europe may have a common currency and stripped down borders between countries, but their approach to building a resilient  future, including energy independence, comes in many shapes and sizes.

Each state in the US is on a similar path, and communities around the world have embarked on similar journeys.  We all hope to meet in the same place of proper balance between our economic engines and preservation of our environment and natural resources.  We thank the many nations of Europe for paving the way to green.

Lessons Learned Along Europe’s Road to Renewables

Denmark, Portugal, and Spain have all made a rapid transition away from fossil fuels for electricity, but each in a different way

By Christian Roselund & John Bernhardt

Photo: Siemens

The Anholt offshore wind farm, located off the eastern coast of Denmark, consists of 11 turbines, each with a 3.5-megawatt capacity. In total, Denmark now has 4.9 gigawatts of wind capacity, which supplied 39 percent of the country’s electricity in 2014.

Visitors to Denmark are often taken by the ubiquitous wind turbines, which tower above the land and sea. On one windy day in December 2013, these turbines provided more electricity than the entire nation could use—a first for Denmark or any country.

While that day was exceptional, wind met 39 percent of Denmark’s electricity needs last year, the highest share of any nation. And wind isn’t Denmark’s only renewable energy source; the country has also been investing heavily in biomass power plants that burn woody material and straw and in biogas tanks that capture methane from organic material to produce electricity. Add in solar arrays and renewable sources accounted for 60 percent of Denmark’s electricity in 2014, according to Energinet, the company that operates the Danish electricity and gas grids.

Of course, Denmark is not alone in its drive to harness more renewable energy. Portugal last year met 30 percent of its electricity demand with nonhydropower renewables, and Spain reached 27 percent. Together, these three nations are leading Europe’s clean energy revolution. (Germany, meanwhile, has also invested heavily in solar and wind power, but the share of electricity it gets from renewable sources lags that of Denmark, Portugal, and Spain; see “Has Germany’s Energy Transition Stalled?”)

These three countries overcame the technical challenges of integrating intermittent solar and wind sources into their grids; additionally, Spain and Portugal have improved the overall reliability of their power systems, while Denmark has maintained a highly reliable grid. Considered together, the three countries show that no special geography is required for switching to renewables. The fact that solar and wind technologies have become much cheaper and more efficient in recent years did not play a significant role (although it didn’t hurt). Instead, in all three cases, a deliberate energy policy has been the key driver.

Denmark: The pioneer

 

Photo: Siemens

This static var (volt-ampere reactive) compensator on the Danish island of Lolland helps stabilize the low-power transmission system in the south of Denmark. Maintaining a stable grid has been a high priority with the widespread deployment of intermittent wind-generated electricity throughout the country.

Europe’s energy transition began in Denmark, which embraced wind power and other renewable sources decades before any scientific consensus on man-made climate change emerged. What motivated the Danes was the country’s overdependence on fossil fuels.

In 1973 and again in 1979, skyrocketing oil prices hit many countries around the world. Denmark, where imported petroleum met 90 percent of energy needs, was particularly pained. The Danish government at first considered building nuclear power plants, but this idea proved unpopular. Paul Gipe, the author of more than a dozen books on wind and renewable energy policy, has studied the Danish experience extensively. He says members of Denmark’s antinuclear movement began building small, locally owned wind turbines as an alternative.

“There was a citizens’ movement to develop wind energy, and it got ahead of the government,” says Gipe. “The citizens’ movement said if the government is not going to take action in developing wind energy, we will take control in our hands. We will build the turbines and connect them to the grid.”

Federal policies responded to this development in various ways. In 1985, for instance, the Danish government began a program to subsidize 30 percent of the cost of installing wind turbines and other renewable energy sources; later it required that utilities purchase this electricity at an agreed price, with a bonus from its carbon tax.
These policies in turn gave rise to Denmark’s wind industry, led by homegrown manufacturers such as Vestas Wind Systems, Nordtank Energy Group (which later merged with NEG Micon and then Vestas), and Bonus Energy (which was acquired by Siemens). Danish wind turbines became progressively larger and more sophisticated and were deployed widely throughout the nation.

The citizens’ movement in Denmark said if the government is not going to take action in developing wind energy, we will take control in our hands. We will build the turbines and connect them to the grid.

“Other countries had support for research and development and universities,” says Birger T. Madsen, who was chair of the Danish Wind Industry Association in the 1980s. “Denmark was the only nation to have direct market stimulation. It took 10 years before all the other European countries caught up with that model.”
Another turning point came in 1993, with the establishment of what’s known as a standard offer policy. This nationwide policy increased the payment levels to wind projects and provided support equally across the nation. As a result, Danish wind capacity grew sixfold, to 3.1 gigawatts, over the next 10 years.

Of course, wind is the most variable electricity source, and its output is hard to forecast. In any electricity system, supply and demand must be balanced, and this is harder to do when the electricity supply is continuously changing and you have limited visibility as to how much power will be available. Reliably integrating large amounts of wind generation into the grid thus presented a technical challenge. Grid interconnections with neighboring countries proved vital because they allowed Denmark to send excess power abroad on windy days and to import power in times of low wind—a much less expensive solution than available forms of energy storage. Indeed, the nation has one of the highest degrees of regional interconnection in the world, with a series of high-voltage power lines running under the icy waterways that separate it from Sweden and Norway, as well as overland transmission to Germany. Through Scandinavia's regional power market, Denmark trades electricity with Finland, Norway, and Sweden in intervals of less than an hour.

Danish grid operators were skeptical at first about their ability to export and import so much power so quickly, but they soon realized it was feasible. In 2003, for instance, the chairman of Western Denmark’s grid operator noted that although the company had feared its system could not handle wind capacity above 500 megawatts, it was by then handling nearly five times as much.

As a result, even though renewables now provide 60 percent of Denmark’s electrical generation, its grid is markedly more reliable than that of the United States. On average, the United States has three times as many outages as Denmark, with each outage lasting 14 times as long.

To be sure, Denmark’s transition toward renewable energy has not been entirely smooth. In 2001, a center-right government took office; it changed the incentive structure for wind and removed the right of turbine operators to interconnect to the grid. By 2004, the building of new wind farms had ground to a halt, and very little new capacity was added over the next four years.

In 2008, in anticipation of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference the following year, the same government began promoting large-scale wind deployments once again. The leftist coalition government that took power in 2011 has taken renewables even further, calling for 100 percent renewable energy in the electricity and heating sectors by 2035.

Read more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/lessons-learned-along-europes-road-to-renewables