Wind Energy Helps Build a More Reliable and Balanced Electricity Portfolio

Distilling tens of thousands of pages of analysis by grid operators and other experts

Some of the most common questions about wind energy focus on how it can be reliably integrated into the power system. This report answers the most frequently asked questions, with lessons learned from grid operators’ experiences reliably integrating large amounts of wind.

Whitepaper topics:

1. How much wind energy is on the power system now?
2. How do grid operators accommodate such large amounts of wind energy?
3. How much does it cost integrate wind?
4. How much more wind energy can we reliably integrate?
5. Don’t grid operators need to add backup to integrate wind?
6. What happens wen the wind doesn’t blow?
7. Don’t we need baseload power?
8. hat about the reliability services provided by conventional generation?
9. What has been Europe’s experience with renewable energy?
10. What is needed to reliably accommodate higher levels of wind?
11. Isn’t energy storage necessary to integrate wind?
12. Why is some wind power curtailed? How does time of production affect the value of wind energy?
13. How does the renewable energy Production Tax Credit affect electricity markets and reliability?
14. What is wind’s net impact on emissions?
15. Can wind reliably reach the level of output EPA assumed in its Clean Power Plan?

Concise answers are provided in the executive summary, with citations and supporting analysis included in the full report.