seminar announcement

[Adrian Tompkins]

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    Environmental Meteorology Seminar Series

For details on registration please 
see:/https://www.ictp.it/research/esp/seminar-series.aspx
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/06/05/2021 15:00 @ ICTP/
Wind farm revenues in Western Europe in present and future climate

Anna Creti

Anna Creti
/Professor Laboratoire d'Économie de Dauphine-Centre de Géopolitique de 
l'Energie et des Matières Premières (LeDA-CGEMP).
Paris Dauphine University
Paris, France/

*Abstract*

Wind energy is one of the key drivers of energy transition, however the 
flow of investments into this industry is hampered by the uncertainty of 
the future revenues, arising from the natural variability of the 
resource, the impact of climate change on wind potential and future 
electricity prices, and the policy risks. In this article we quantify 
the uncertainty of the net present value of standardized wind farms in 
European countries and evaluate the level and cost of support mechanisms 
needed to guarantee the profitability of the wind fleet under present 
and future climate. To this end, we build a localized model for wind 
power output and a country-level model for electricity demand and prices 
taking into account hourly variation of wind, load and prices, using 
reanalysis data, climate projections and Integrated Assessment Model 
(IAM) scenarios. Our methodology is general, but for specific 
evaluations we focus on the examples of France, Germany and Denmark. Our 
study reveals that support mechanisms in these countries are needed for 
wind energy to be profitable under current market prices and current 
climate. Under future climate, using several scenarios for climate 
change and energy transition, we also show that the evolution of both 
price and wind production does not allow the wind energy industry in 
these countries to develop in a free market environment and that support 
mechanisms will still be needed in future. The cost of these support 
mechanisms for a 15-year period is evaluated to 57–172 billion euros in 
France, 232–397 billion euros in Germany, and 18–50 billion euros in 
Denmark, depending on the scenario considered and the level of 
penetration of wind energy.