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by toemetoch 5106 days ago
- It's not just wind (turbines) but also solar.

- You don't have centralized access to all the facilities. E.g. small and medium-scale solar falls under the control of the owner AFAIK. Large scale wind also has other parties involved that don't want to miss out on income.

- Control of energy production on a national or regional scale follows prediction models, not only for demand but also price of resources such as gas and weather forecasts for renewables. So for a holiday they would shutdown a number of "classic" facilities to follow a day-ahead schedule. This probably increased the dependency on renewables for that day.

The big question "why didn't they shutdown wind farms": I don't know but I plan to find out.
1 comments
LiamMcCalloway 5106 days ago
As per the 2003 E.U. directive on renewable energy, renewables have priority access to the rid to offload their production. This is makes sense because it ensures full utilization of the assets and helps reduce their costs.

EDIT: grammar

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toemetoch 5105 days ago
Both the 2003 directive [0] and the 2009 directive [1] state that member states may give priority - with notion of exceptions for security. Maybe priority was indeed the factor, but it's not mandated on a European level.

[0] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

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LiamMcCalloway 5105 days ago
The 2003 Directive you quote (2003/30) is for biofuels, whereas 2003/54 deals with renewable electricity. Both refer to 2001/77, which details the condition of access to the grid for renewables. The language is relatiely clear Art. 7 - 1, if we distinguish between "access to the grid" meaning in the first part "right to connect" and "right to output" in the second part.

> Without prejudice to the maintenance of the reliability > and safety of the grid, Member States shall take the necessary > measures to ensure that transmission system operators and > distribution system operators in their territory guarantee the > transmission and distribution of electricity produced from > renewable energy sources. They may also provide for priority > access to the grid system of electricity produced from renew-able energy sources. > When dispatching generating installations, > transmission system operators shall give priority to > generating > installations using renewable energy sources insofar as the > operation of the national electricity system permits.

However, it is superseded by 2009/28, which states in Art. 16 - 2 (a):

> Member States shall ensure that transmission system opera­tors and distribution system operators in their territory guar­antee the transmission and distribution of electricity produced from renewable energy sources

I believe the confusion stems from the distinction between right to connect to the grid and right to offload power to the grid. It seems clear the latter is indeed mandated at the E.U. level.

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