Some of Europe’s top economies where wind power plays a key role in electricity supply had to curtail a record amount of generation capacity between January and September as grids were unable to dispatch the surge in renewable energy output.
When excess wind or solar output threatens to overwhelm grids, operators are being paid to reduce generation from their renewable energy assets.
The curtailment rates in Spain, Germany, France, and south Sweden rose in the nine months of the year compared to the same period of 2024, according to estimates by data provider LSEG cited by Bloomberg.
The curtailment rate in Spain jumped to 12.2% this year from 9% last year, the one in France increased to 5.3% from 3.8%, Germany’s curtailment rate inched up to 4.9% from 4.5%, and the south Sweden curtailment rate was 2.4%, up from 2.0% a year earlier, the data showed.
Outside the EU, offshore wind turbines in Scotland have also had to intentionally reduce power generation. Operators of wind turbines in Scotland were paid to switch their turbines off 37% of the time over the first half of the year, the Financial Times has reported, an amount equal to 4 TWh that were not produced due to lack of demand and infrastructure to bring the electricity to where there was demand.
The EU, the UK, and other countries have acknowledged that renewable energy capacity exceeds the capacity of the grids, which are in urgent need of upgrade and expansion.
The European Commission plans to address critical grid bottlenecks in European electricity infrastructure in a bid to avoid spiking power and energy costs, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month.
The national grids are not well integrated as Europe lacks the necessary interconnectors and is not using efficiently the ones it has, the EU Commission president said.
The European Commission has estimated that $2.36 trillion (2 trillion euros) to $2.7 trillion (2.3 trillion euros) is required to meet grid needs until 2050, a review of the EU’s electricity grids by the European Court of Auditors showed earlier this year.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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