“The Wind path” in Power System transition

After having described the Nuclear path in Power System transition the next step is to report the wind path. From the earlier WattWatch US Trilemma analysis, three US states had an excellent CO2 reduction in their Power mixes during the period of 1990-2019 due to wind.
Oklahoma, Iowa and Kansas. As comparison, Denmark and Germany have been added, to give some European examples as well and Texas, a progressive wind expanding state

These markets have off course very different characteristics, both in power mixes and system size but also towards whom they boarder. But just to render some interest, they are all put together next to each other, to compare the initial Trilemma parameters, Sustainability and Affordability. Later, it can be judged if deeper analysis would be of interest.

Sustainability:

Denmark is as earlier seen, the best improver on CO2 in their mix, 79% over the 29 years.
Oklahoma second and Iowa third.

Developments 1990-2019 Source: EIA,IEA for all graphs

Denmark reduces Coal in its mix from 91% in 1990 to 11% in 2019. Wind goes from 5 to 55%.

Oklahoma reduces Coal from almost 60% to below 10%, wind goes from 0% to 34%.

Iowa reduces Coal from 85% to 35%, while expanding wind from 0% to 41%

Kansas reduces Coal from 70% to 43% while expanding wind from 0% to 42%. One additional point here is that Kansas have approximately 20% nuclear in their existing mix. Following earlier reasoning on nuclear being a good base load, it could be explored in a later piece, if that mix component could be further utilized/expanded in a future system setup.

Texas reduces Coal from 43% to 19% in 2019 and expands wind from 0% to 17%, a bit to go here vs the rest of the states and countries. But Texas has very high ambition in RE, interesting to follow development.

Germany reduces Coal/Lignite from 58% to 30% and expand wind from 0% to 24% and solar to 10%.

There can be slightly different mix paths observed for these states and countries.
The coming 5 years will be very interesting with still major additions of wind in Germany and Texas to come.

Affordability:

Most comments on Affordability have been made in the individual geographical Trilemma analysis. All US states have competitive prices, where the European markets do not.

For Midsized Industry, Denmark has re-stored competitiveness over the last 13 years.

Security of Supply:

No indication yet that the third Trilemma parameter is causing any major concern over the period in the chosen markets, but to be defined and monitored going forward. Denmark has been commented on a few times, with the two Scandinavian batteries next to them.

Discussion:

The discussion here is about having now defined a Wind path and pattern for Carbon reduction going forward. We see very different situations for Affordability, but with significant better CO2 reductions. Wind/intermittent share in the different mixes are between 17% for Texas to 55% for Denmark.

These amounts of intermittent is still within what is said to be “easy” to reach. Both Brick& Thernstrom in 2016 as well as IEA in 2020, states that “50-60% intermittent should be relatively easy, 80% a bit more complicated and 90-100% quite expensive and challenging”.

Those chosen markets will interesting to follow on this theme. Who can transition their power systems in a balanced way to safeguard all three Trilemma parameters? As said earlier, a deeper analysis can follow, if there is interest.

Next steps:

From here WattWatch will investigate The System Cost Landscape as well as the 800 B€ Offshore Wind bet, stay tuned.