Implementation of wind power in the Dutch power system

We present the current status of wind power in the Netherlands and its future prospects, in particular for the development of offshore wind. An overview is given of the performance of the wind power on land. We briefly discuss the experience with OWEZ, the first offshore wind park commissioned April 2007, and the expectations for Q7, to be completed March 2008. The organization of the energy and imbalance markets in the Netherlands is described. Balancing requirements due to variability and limited predictability of wind energy are estimated, at system and market participant level. Next, we present the results of a wind power integration study performed in order to estimate the amount of wind curtailment due to the technical limitations of the conventional units in the Netherlands. It is found that due to must-run constraints on the combined heat and power units, which constitute over 50% of the Dutch production park, sufficient reserve is available to cover wind fluctuations and prediction errors for up to 8000 MW installed wind power. The only limiting factor is the minimum output of the conventional units, which may result in increasing curtailed wind starting around 4000 MW installed capacity. Changes in system operating costs, curtailed wind and total emissions due to the application of various large-scale storage technologies are described in the final section of the paper