EU Launches TWENTIES Project: Largest Industrial Energy Project Ever

The project is to advance the development and implementation of new technologies that will make it possible to increase the use of wind power in Europe significantly. This will contribute to the EU objective for 2020: a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions; a 20% improvement in energy efficiency, and a 20% share of consumption from renewable energy sources. Risø DTU is going to lead the research activity of this project and assess the consequences of these solutions for the European electricity supply in 2020.

When a storm front hits an offshore wind farm, production may fall in 3-5 minutes from full production to zero. To predict when this is going to happen is very difficult. Together with DONG Energy, SIEMENS Wind Power, Risø DTU and SINTEF Energy Research in Norway, Energinet.dk is going to demonstrate how to cope with the reduction in production, so that it does not happen suddenly, is easier to predict, and also is coordinated with a reduction of the export to Norway. The lost wind energy production is to be replaced with Norwegian hydropower production.

Europe’s electricity system can cope with these abrupt stoppages in wind energy production, because the quantity of electricity from offshore wind farms, after all, accounts for a small part of the total electricity supply. But according to plan several large wind farms will have been constructed by 2020, e.g. in the North Sea. The consequences for the electricity supply would be dramatic if the large wind farms stop almost simultaneously because of heavy storms.

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