Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility (IKEM)
The Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility (IKEM) is an independent research institute associated to the University of Greifswald and a public charity. Together with representatives from politics and practice as well as other research institutes, the IKEM conducts scientific research in the three fields that give it its name. Key tasks are the analysis, assessment and further development of the legal, economic and political framework in order to enable and encourage political measures and economic investments.
Short description of the project contribution
Regulatory framework conditions for the integration of high shares of intermittent renewable energy in the overall energy system
Together with the University of Leipzig as an economic partner, IKEM is working on regulatory issues of a new market design and the design of the ‘amber traffic light phase’ in the ‘grid traffic light model’ which was proposed by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW).
So far, the legal framework has not been sufficiently adapted to critical grid conditions (amber traffic light phase) that may result from the increasing supply of intermittent renewable energy. Flexibility that can balance out these fluctuations is not sufficiently taken into account in current legislation. As a result, renewable energy systems are regularly curtailed in the event of grid bottlenecks and are therefore no longer available to the energy system.
To prevent such limitations, IKEM derives recommended political actions to increase the share of renewable energy in the overall system (sector coupling) from legal work and ad hoc consultations. The resulting findings can also be applied to the legal framework independently of SINTEG experimental clauses.
Based on these recommended political actions, the legal framework should ideally also be adjusted outside of the WindNODE project to render flexibility useful to the overall energy system. As a result, critical grid situations do not have to be countered by limiting the output of renewable energy installations, but their share in the overall system can be increased.