https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20159804006
Electricity generation by intermittent sources
Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik - Greifswald, Germany
Published online: 27 August 2015
This paper deals with the production of electricity by wind and photovoltaic (PV) power mostly in Germany. The German data of 2012 are scaled to a 100% supply of the electricity consumption by renewable sources. Wind and PV power are mixed in a ratio which minimises back-up energy. The 100%, optimal mix data are used to identify the powers to be installed, the accumulating backup and surplus energies, the size of storage to replace thermal back-up power, the possibilities of demand-side-management, and the specific CO2 production. The benefits of using an EU-wide field of renewable energies (RES) instead of the national one are quantified and the interconnection capacities specified. Finally, the costs of installing RES are discussed. The conclusion is that a 100% supply by RES may not be meaningful. Large-scale supply by RES alone has deficiencies and it will remain a major task for science and technology to either improve such a system or find a suitable replacement.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
