Abstract
One of the most important tasks rising from the ambitious European targets for renewable energy is to ensure efficient grid integration of wind power. This paper, using the TradeWind approach and tools with respect to wind power scenarios and power flow simulation, analyses the impact of high wind power penetration on congestion costs between countries in the European grid. It has been shown that for low to moderate amounts of wind power in the system, wind power contributes to reducing the total bottleneck costs in the system, compared to a reference scenario were the wind power capacity is set to zero. However, as more wind power is introduced to the system, wind induced bottlenecks becomes more significant. The benefits of building a meshed offshore grid in the North Sea is assessed by comparing costs and benefits with a base case with radial connection of all offshore wind farms.