Northwest looks to Europe for ideas on wind

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BPA's Stateline wind project

Denmark, with a population of 5 million, no coal power to speak of, and 3,625 megawatts of wind-energy capacity (enough to power almost 1 million U.S. homes), provides a good case study for Oregon as it looks to integrate more wind energy into its power mix.

It's no wonder then that Denmark — which has the audacious goal of shedding 100 percent of its fossil fuel use by 2050 — was on the meeting agenda last week of the Northwest Wind Integration Forum’s Technical Work Group, which wanted to learn more about how Denmark is handling the growing numbers of wind turbines within their national energy systems. Representative from Germany and Spain were also on hand.

Denmark has the connectivity and the market structure in place to sell its excess wind energy to Sweden and Norway in a kind of real-time stock exchange for energy.

"Since we have to exchange with those markets, it’s important to have good functioning wind markets," said Gitte Agersbaek, a senior engineer from state-owned transmission system operator Energinet in Denmark.

The export of wind power is of interest to energy leaders in the Northwest who are eying the region’s bountiful wind resources as a potential export to a hungry renewable energy market in California.

“We’re sitting on a very valuable resource,” said Eliot Mainzer, vice president at Bonneville Power Adminstration. “If we want to be an exporter and extract the value of this resource, we need to make sure the local utilities have access to what they need, and we’re going to have to be working very closely with California about whether or not we have to get new transmission down there and who’s going to pay for it.”

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council is working with the BPA and state energy departments on how to best manage wind power. Oregon has 1,920 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity, according to the mid-year report from the American Wind Energy Association. Washington has roughly the same amount.

The Northwest Wind Integration Technology Forum was formed in 2006, and gets together every six months to discuss wind-integration issues.

The council’s Wind Integration Action Plan addresses issues such as load balancing, transmission and integration costs.

Spain and Germany, both countries comparable in size to the Northwest region, have impressive wind capacities — 19,000 megawatts for Spain and 25,000 megawatts for Germany.

“They have a very substantial penetration of wind energy on their grid. It hasn’t been a piece of cake for them either,” Mainzer said. “Both Germany and Spain are looking at substantial transmission line investments.”

All three European countries make extensive use of wind-speed forecasting to set energy prices and plan for balancing needs. BPA is moving toward better forecasting with the installation of 14 new weather stations last year that provide data for a real-time display of wind capacity.

While the United States is looking for guidance in Europe, Michael Milstein, spokesman for BPA, says the rest of the country is watching how the Northwest handles its wind energy integration.

“The Northwest is really the first place in the U.S. to wrestle with some of these issues,” Milstein said. “We’re out there in the lead. That’s both exciting and intimidating.”