Obtaining access to the electrical grid is currently one of the main bottlenecks hindering the deployment of more renewable megawatts in Europe.
And when I say grid access, I mean that the Transmission System Operator (TSO) of the corresponding country tells you how many megawatts and at which point of the grid you can connect your plant.
For example, in the case of Spain, it would be Red Eléctrica de España responsible for granting these accesses.
The fact is that across the old continent there are hundreds of gigawatts waiting to be connected to the grid. There is administrative overload, and this causes the permitting timelines to stretch much longer than desired.
However, it is also true that this is not the only bottleneck. Environmental impact statements, for example, are also a bottleneck in many European countries. Each country really has its own particular story, as the project processing procedure is different (at least in some parts) in each of them.
With the aim of shedding a bit more light on this issue, WindEurope has published a detailed report “Grid access challenges for wind farms in Europe”, which breaks down the intricacies of grid access in Europe and also describes the different peculiarities between countries, which are numerous.
The following map offers an overview of the wind power queued waiting for connection to the grid. It is a very enlightening map, although it must be interpreted properly, as the particularities of the permitting process in each country are very relevant to understanding the figures. That is, they are not directly comparable (there is a lot of fine print).
In some countries, grid access is one of the first milestones granted to plants, while in others, it is one of the last. For example, of the 191 GW of wind power in Italy, many projects will clearly never be built because they will not be able to overcome other administrative milestones of the process (environmental impact, for example).
WindEurope report focuses on four main points: planning and development of new connections, costs of electrical infrastructure, curtailment, and hybridizations.
Planning and development of new connections. Main factors delaying grid connection:
Costs of electrical infrastructure. Connecting plants to the grid has two main expenses: those associated with connecting the installation itself and those associated with the general reinforcement of the electrical grid. Depending on the country, developers participate more or less in the costs:
- Super-shallow: costs are socialized among all consumers through the tariff.
- Shallow: the developer pays the costs associated with the project’s connection but not the costs associated with the general reinforcement of the grid.
- Deep: the developer pays the costs associated with the project’s connection and the costs associated with the general reinforcement of the grid.
Curtailment and compensation. Curtailment involves a plant having to reduce its production because the electrical grid, for whatever reason (lack of demand, lack of capacity in transmission lines), is unable to absorb it.
In some European countries, this is starting to become a point of uncertainty when making investments. Additionally, depending on the country, curtailment is either compensated economically or not compensated.
Hybridizations. One way to maximize the use of the existing electrical grid, delay new investments, and reduce curtailment is to hybridize different renewable generation technologies (with or without batteries) so that they share the same grid access point. For example: connecting 50 megawatts of wind power and 30 megawatts of solar power at the same 50 megawatt grid access point.
However, most countries do not include this possibility in their legislation. In fact, Spain and Portugal are the most advanced in this regard, which has led to the emergence of such installations.
As you can see, each country has its own particularities and problems.
The European Union wants to increase the installed wind power capacity from the current 220 GW to 425 GW by 2030 and 1,300 GW by 2050. But it will not be easy.
