Wind Will Power Fossil Fuel-Free Denmark by 2050?
September 29th, 2010Via: Guardian:
The falling cost of renewable energy and rising cost of oil and gas will allow Denmark to develop an energy network entirely free of fossil fuels by 2050, according to a report published by the government’s climate commission.
The committee predicted that wind and biomass energy could meet the bulk of the country’s energy requirements.
It also argued that switching to renewables would be cheaper than continuing to use fossil fuels, particularly if predictions of soaring oil and gas prices are borne out.
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see this post for several reasons why this is doubtful.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6957
in a nutshell, extreme penetrations of wind (or other stochastic sources of electricity) will lead to periods of massive overproduction, and periods where electricity will still need to be imported or produced from controllable sources. Biomass as the answer? Doubtful that DK can grow enough sustainable biomass to heat homes, and provide controllable back up power generation.
re: stochastic sources of electricity:
http://www.beaconpower.com/solutions/other-flywheel-applications.asp
Under: Ramp Mitigation for Wind:
Flywheel-based energy storage could act as both a buffer and balancing resource between variable wind generation, slower-ramping conventional fossil generation, and various fast- and slow-acting demand response resources.
Here’s the first utility scale buildout (20 megawatt, just for frequency regulation):
http://www.beaconpower.com/company/20100831-gallery.asp