Challenges and Costs of Integrating Growing Amounts of Wind Power Capacity Into the Grid: Some Experiences Dealing with 12 000 MW in Germany

High annual growth rates over the past years resulted in an installed wind power capacity of 12,000 MW in Germany by the end of 2002, which generated about 17.3 TWh electricity, or about 3.7 % of the German electricity consumption. This development was made possible by laws introducing feed-in tariffs for wind power generation. Due to the fluctuating nature of wind power generation, the feed-in of growing amounts into the grid causes considerable challenges and costs for affected transmission system operators, who have to ensure a safe grid operation, even though basically good working wind power prediction tools exist