New mega study on integrating 25-30% renewables into transmission network

Germany's energy agency Deutsche Energieagentur (DENA), with a mind to the government's newly announced intention to achieve 25-30% of gross electricity consumption from renewables by 2020, is co-ordinating a study on how to accommodate the planned capacity into the grid and transmission network, including 20 GW of offshore wind. Germany currently gets 13% of its electricity from renewables. The new DENA study, due for completion at the end of 2009, will examine flexible power generation mechanisms, forecasting of wind energy output and power consumption, and power demand management. Provision of reserve and balancing power for wind energy and use of storage technologies will also be investigated, as will different methods of transmitting power from wind farms to load centres within the country. Further, security of electricity supply "including in difficult situations" and the potential of raising the capacity of transmission wires through dynamic monitoring of their temperature, a system being tested by E.ON Netz in northern Germany, will round off the report. The German wind energy association, Bundesverband Windenergie, and offshore wind developer and turbine manufacturer Bard Engineering are representing the wind industry.