Panel Session: Europe: Transmission System Developments, Interconnections, Electricity Exchanges, Deregulation, and Implementing Technology in Power Generation with Respect to the Kyoto Protocol

Sustainability of the future energy supply based on renewable resources is a long-term strategic objective [1] in view of limited fossil resources and the avoidance of emissions and toxic waste. Of the various resources, available now or in future, wind is presently considered in Europe to hold most promise for contributing in the next few decades a sizeable part of the electrical energy; generating electricity from wind is state of the art and feeding large amounts of wind power to the electrical grid is believed by many to pose no problems. Evaluating recent data from one of the four control areas in Germany it is discussed how a sustainable electrical energy supply based on off-shore wind power and pumped storage, called a "wind and water"-model, might look. It turns out that such an energy scheme, while being feasible in principle, would require an immense storage capacity that is impossible to realize, hence thermal generation continues to be needed; the addition of biomass as a regenerative source is not substantially changing the picture.