Europe could get 10 times its energy needs from wind

From Carbon Brief:

An increased rollout of onshore wind turbines across Europe could technically provide the continent with more than 10 times its existing electricity needs, according to a new paper.

To make their estimate, a team of German researchers took into account changing wind speeds, all the available land and, crucially, futuristic turbine designs that are already coming onto the market.

While they note that generating 100% of Europe’s power from wind would not actually be feasible due to social, economic and political constraints, the scientists say their estimate gives a “significantly higher” figure than most previous assessments of wind potential.

Their paper, published in the journal Energy, also suggests that, as technology advances, the cost of the resulting electricity will be cheaper than previous studies have estimated.

Some nations, including the UK, have struggled with political opposition to onshore wind. However, with the EU facing ambitious climate targets in the coming years, wind is expected to be the biggest contributor to the region’s power supply within less than a decade.

As it stands, the EU is aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% by 2050 compared to 1990, amid mounting pressure on member states to agree to a net-zero target.

Achieving these goals will require an enormous shift across the continent to renewable power sources. Germany has already pledged to switch almost totally to renewables by the middle of the century.

Wind – particularly onshore wind – is expected to make a significant contribution to these targets. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook last year concluded wind energy is set to overtake coal, nuclear and gas and become the EU’s largest power source by 2027.

Various studies have attempted to estimate the wind capacity of the entire continent, adding to the body of evidence concerning the technology’s feasibility. These studies take into account factors such as weather patterns and hypothetical locations for windfarms to gauge the maximum potential wind power has across the region.

These studies have tended to estimate a total European capacity of between around 8 and 12 terawatts (TW), which would result in a total annual generation of between 16 and 21 petawatt hours (PWh). Given the annual electricity generation for Europe – according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy – is just 3.6PWh, this already vastly exceeds the amount required on the continent.

[Read more here]

I have seen similarly large estimates of the potential supply from offshore wind.  Also, although there are several regions on the map below with low wind potential, they tend also to be coincidentally places with higher solar potential.   With a mix of wind and solar, long-distance HVDC lines, battery storage and power-to-gas Europe will be able to go carbon neutral by 2050 without problems.