The economics of wind energy within the generation mix Online publication date: Tue, 05-Apr-2005
by Helmut Alt
International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy (IJETP), Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2005
Abstract: With more than 15,000 plants of different capacity ranges, Germany has become the world's No. 1 in generating electricity from wind power, covering around 4% of the electricity requirements at home. This is due on the one hand to the successful promotion by the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) and, on the other hand, to the tax breaks from loss allocation and depreciation. During low-load periods, load dispatchers today already have to balance power gradients of more than 10% of the respective network load per minute, which are increasingly covered by the provision of balancing power from conventional power plants. The legally fixed permanent subsidy burden of the electricity industry due to the high compensation fee for wind power alone currently amounts to euro 1.4 billion a year. If base load capacity from nuclear power plants is replaced in the medium term, this will not reduce but rather increase CO2 emissions as generation from gas turbines will have to be increased temporarily in times of flagging winds.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy (IJETP):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook