DANISH WIND INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION - 50% wind energy in the grid is feasible

Grid integration of up to 50% wind energy in the Danish electricity system by 2025 is technically and economically feasible according to a new study from the system operator Elkraft System.

 

"The system is on an hourly basis able to absorb a vast amount of wind power. The system will reach its critical limit - meaning a situation where it is necessary to shut down wind turbines - only a few hours during the year," says Hans Henrik Lindboe, engineer in Elkraft System.

 

The starting point for Elkraft's new assessments has been an expansion of Scandinavian wind power by 17,000 MW. Wind energy installations in Denmark can expand from 3,100 MW today to 5,000 MW in 2025.

Also in 2005, EWEA released a large study on grid integration, you can read the full pdf. While it doesn't zoom in on one quote-able high-end number, I quote a longer passage from the executive summary:

...In the west-Denmark
transmission system, which is not connected to the
eastern part of the country, some 25% of electricity
demand is met by wind power in a normal wind year
and, on some occasions, the wind has been able to
cover 100% of instantaneous demand.

The integration of large amounts of wind power is often
dismissed as impossible and many grid operators
are reluctant to make changes in long established
procedures to accommodate wind power. In Denmark,
the grid operator was initially sceptical about how much
wind power the system could cope with. The attitude
of many grid operators to wind power can best be
illustrated by the following quote from Eltra, the TSO in
west-Denmark, at the presentation of its annual report.

...Seven or eight years ago, we said that the electricity
system could not function if wind power increased above
500 MW. Now we are handling almost five times as much.
And I would like to tell the Government and the Parliament
that we are ready to handle even more, but it requires
that we are allowed to use the right tools to manage the
system».