Wind on the Wires1 - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 154

changes were approved (MISO 2011 ) . Unlike the contentious and costly transmission
planning, wind integration into the markets was largely procedural.
Today, almost 80 percent of MISO wind resources are part of the DIR program and
integrated into energy markets; the amount of wind power curtailed has decreased by
half since 2011. Wind plants bid into day-ahead electricity markets and wind's bid level
is “trued up” ten minutes before dispatch. This allows wind generators to fine-tune their
bids to account for the actual wind conditions. Thus, the short-term persistence of wind
projections is used to more accurately integrate wind into the energy market. In MISO, a
smart grid for wind has included new integration of controls, technology, transmission, and
data.Whilewindisstillnotallowedtoparticipateinancillaryservicemarketswhichensure
power quality and reliability, ongoing research into new control systems could change this
in the future too (Ela et al. 2014 ) .
6.6 Germany: Wind and Transmission
Large-scale wind energy in Germany is a piece of a larger story of an ongoing societal
transformation, from initial technology development to the society-wide Energiewende ,
or Energy Transformation. As in Texas and the Midwest, German policies began by
incentivizing the creation and deployment of wind turbines, but this effort has recently
expanded beyond just promoting renewables to a much larger national commitment to
shifting the entire German energy system to a renewables-based system - with a goal of 80
percent of electricity to be generated from renewable power by 2050. Large-scale wind and
a smarter grid play a central role in this transition.
Compared to Texas, the land area of Germany is small; Germany consists of less than
138,000 square miles, which is roughly half the size of Texas. The building and integration
of wind power in Germany has been different from that seen in either Texas or the
Midwest. Germany is a densely populated country which imports more than 70 percent
of its energy resources. Germany's best wind resources are located in the north of the
country and offshore, but most of the energy demand is in the industrial south. Given the
distance between the northern wind resources and the southern demand, development of
new North-South transmission lines has emerged as a critical national issue.
By the end of 2013, Germany had installed over 33,000 MW of wind power, meeting
about 10 percent of the country's electricity demand; this amount is about half of the wind
power installed in the entire United States, yet it is installed on less than 5 percent of the
land area of the continental United States (European Wind Energy Association 2014 ) . In
additiontohelpingGermanychangeitsenergysystemtorespondtoclimatechange,energy