Abstract
This study estimates the optimal level of wind-generated electricity production in Nordic countries’ market region given the existing hydroreservoirs of Norway to regulate the intermittency in wind-energy production and to meet the market demand. Using realized, scaled patterns for hourly wind production and electricity demand, we perform a series of numerical simulations and find a threshold value of approximately 90 TWh for annual wind production after which surplus and deficit in the production begin to accumulate significantly, weakening the utilization factor of wind installments. In light of the ambitious climate policies in the Nordic countries, and that the existing annual capacity of installed wind in the region is approximately 41 TWh, the Nordic governments should consider investing heavily in both national and international grid infrastructure to enable private sector to double the existing wind capacity in the market region.
Highlights
Utilization factor plays a significant role in the assessment of economic feasibility of electricity production methods that are dominated by capital costs
This study estimates the optimal level of wind-generated electricity production in Nordic countries’ market region given the existing hydroreservoirs of Norway to regulate the intermittency in wind-energy production and to meet the market demand
Using realized, scaled patterns for hourly wind production and electricity demand, we perform a series of numerical simulations and find a threshold value of approximately 90 TWh for annual wind production after which surplus and deficit in the production begin to accumulate significantly, weakening the utilization factor of wind installments
Summary
Utilization factor plays a significant role in the assessment of economic feasibility of electricity production methods that are dominated by capital costs. We find an optimal level of wind to be approximately 90 TWh, which is to be complemented with approximately 120 TWh of hydro-generated electricity, meeting a total demand of 210 TWh annually. This corresponds to a 43% share of wind of the combined production to meet the demand and is in line with previous studies that have focused on investigating intermittent energy source integration into electricity networks [6,7,8] and cost-effectiveness of such scenarios [9].
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