Large-scale wind power in European electricity markets: Time for revisiting support schemes and market designs?

This paper questions whether current renewable support schemes and electricity market designs are well-suited to host a significant amount of wind energy. Our analysis aims at finding the right equilibrium between market signals received by wind generators and their intrinsic risks. More market signals are needed to give the right incentives for reducing wind integration costs but should not undermine the effectiveness of support schemes. Although several alternatives combining support schemes and market signals could improve the current situation in terms of market signals and risks, feed-in premium support scheme seems actually to be the more balanced option. Furthermore, an adequate sharing of wind generation technical responsibility between the system operator and wind power producers can help to control wind integration costs even in the absence of accurate market signals. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.