Electricity by intermittent sources: An analysis based on the German situation 2012

The 2012 data of the German load, the on- and offshore and the photo-voltaic energy production are used and scaled to the limit of supplying the annual demand (100% case). The reference mix of the renewable energy (RE) forms is selected such that the remaining back-up energy is minimised. For the 100% case, the RE power installation has to be about 3 times the present peak load. The back-up system can be reduced by 12% in this case. The surplus energy corresponds to 26% of the demand. The back-up system and more so the grid must be able to cope with large power excursions. All components of the electricity supply system operate at low capacity factors. Large-scale storage can hardly be motivated by the effort to further reduce CO2 emission. Demand-side management will intensify the present periods of high economic activities. Its rigorous implementation will expand the economic activities into the weekends. On the basis of a simple criterion, the increase of periods with negative electricity prices in Germany is assessed. It will be difficult with RE to meet the low CO2 emission factors which characterise those European Countries which produce electricity mostly by nuclear and hydro power.