Tumbler Ridge Wind Energy Project gets construction permit

I got this email today:

Finavera Wind Energy Receives Construction Permit for Tumbler Ridge Wind Energy Project
  
Vancouver, Canada, July 5th, 2012 - Finavera Wind Energy Inc. ('Finavera Wind Energy' or the 'Company') (TSX-V: FVR) is pleased to announce it has received a General Area Licence of Occupation (the "Licence") for the 47 megawatt Tumbler Ridge Wind Energy Project located in northeastern British Columbia. The Licence, which was issued by the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, provides the approval for construction to commence on the project. The Tumbler Ridge Wind Energy Project recently received an Environmental Assessment Certificate and has a 25 year power purchase agreement with B.C. Hydro.
  
The $125-million project will be located 8 kilometres west of Tumbler Ridge. Once completed, the project will generate enough power to provide electricity for up to 18,000 homes. The 12 month project construction period is expected to generate 560 person years of direct employment, and the operational phase of the project is expected to create 188 person years of full-time direct employment.

Finavera Wind Energy CEO Jason Bak said, "This is a key milestone for the Tumbler Ridge Wind Energy Project and allows Finavera to progress through the final steps towards construction of this project. Our next steps are to finalize financing for the project, execute a turbine supply agreement, and contract a group to undertake the construction process."
  
 Jason Bak, CEO  

For more information:

Finavera Wind Energy
Myke Clark
SVP Business Development
Finavera Wind Energy 
(604)-288-9051
mclark@finavera.com 

I wonder if this is the sort of project that the NDP will oppose if they become government in BC?   As long as electrical rates are as low as they are now, the long term contracts are not making BC Hydro money, but I know of know one that thinks the price for electricity will not rise and rise a lot over the next five to ten years.   Once the price goes up BC Hydro will look like genius for having a large supply of green power at below market rates.

Metro Vancouver considering producing power from water system

Metro Vancouver is seeking a a consultant to do a feasibility study to investigate developing power from the water transmission system.   I am very interested to see that they are doing this as all over BC we have water systems that could be producing power.

The energy of the water could turn turbines and produce electrical power.   The sale of this power would help defray the costs of the water system and would offer another source of green power.

Generating power from municipal water systems or from irrigation systems is the lowest hanging green power generation possible.    The water system is already in place, all that needs to be done is adding some form of a turbine at an appropriate spot in the system.

At the moment the only municipal water system that I know of that is producing power is Lake Country from their Eldorado resevoir.  It is a very small system, but provides Lake Country with about $250,000 to $300,000 a year in revenue.  I am not certain, but I think there are three systems connected to ranch irrigation systems.

We have about 200 other municipal water systems that could produce power.   My quick estimate is that they could bring us about 1000-2000 GWh of power per year.    This is on the order of 1/4 to 1/3 of what Site C on the Peace would produce.   This would also be around $10 million a year for local water systems in electrical power sales.

Municipal water systems would have consistent flows year around, there would be not slow times as people are always showering and washing.

If we look further at irrigation systems, there is a potential for something on the same order of power production per year, though they would be on average much smaller.

It is these easy small solutions with no negative impacts that should be pushed.

Green power projects, now what?

There is a "perfect storm" brewing with respect to green power production in BC.

• BC Hydro is once again in full control of the transmission grid
• BC Hydro has started down the Site C project path and has become blinkered to all other power sources
• The BC Hydro corporate culture is once again strongly for large projects and against small private projects
• The NDP has made it clear that it is not open to the idea of more private power
• The recent cabinet shuffle is going to mean months of uncertainty about who can make what decisions and as we get closer May 2013 the time between the permission to go ahead and the next government coming to power is too short to get into the ground and underway.

These five factors could see a dramatic slowing in more green power coming online in BC.   We will see an ongoing slowing in the green power business for the next four to five years.   What will push a resurgence in the business in the future is a growing demand in the Western Interconnect for carbon neutral electrical power.

Within five years there will be more demand to see coal fired power plants shut down and ideally gas fired ones as well.    At the same time demand will be rising in this region of the grid.   The ability of wind, geothermal, solar and wave to provide any significant portion of the power within the next decade is minimal.   Nuclear is going to become very popular and there may even be some projects started, but the lead time for nuke is very long.   The lead time for a large scale hydro project like Site C also takes years till it is online.  There will be a large demand for green power that can quickly come online and only one affordable source, run of the river power.

BC has a huge potential for run of the river power and no matter what happens in the next five years, the demand for this power will be there in 2015 even more so than now.   It is unfortunate that the industry is likely to go through a number of years of troubles before the political climate changes.

The Green Energy Taskforce Report

I have to say underwhelmed is the best I can muster for the Green Energy Taskforce Report.   They had a mandate to provide recommendations on all aspects of green energy production in BC and they produced a document that is more platitudes and motherhood statements than any sort of detailed recommendations.

Here is one of the recommendations:

2. Increase Clean Electricity Demand in B.C.

Growing a low-carbon economy means attracting new investment to B.C. that can be supplied by B.C.’s clean electricity. Clean technology industries, like data centers, could be incented to locate in B.C. to take advantage of data networks.

Recommendation 4: Bring the load/business/jobs to the electrons–actively recruit and attract new low-carbon industry (such as server farms for the Interior).

Where does one start with this?   First of all the recommendation is "Increase Clean Electricity Demand in BC" and not attract greener industries.   The two parts do not connect.   The only way to increase the demand for clean electricity is to remove the BC Hydro monopoly of sales of power so that consumers can choose where they get the power from.    The short paragraph and recommendation there make no sense in the context of green energy.  They do not say who should attract these business to locate in the interior BC or the other impediments to being there.

There are very few clear concrete recommendations within the taskforce report.  A number of the ones verging on having a clear direction are things that are already going on.

 Here is a list of the somewhat more clear recommendations I could find are:

• Complete Revelstoke and Mica dam capacity for power generation
• Move forward on Site C and Site E
• Move procurement, generation operations, and export outside of BCUC regulation.
• Develop a Lowe Carbon Transition Plan (though dates for when)
• By September 30, 2010, and using existing data and information layers, develop a renewable energy zoning map for the Province that identifies where development of renewable energy and transmission is appropriate and inappropriate.
• Direct BC Hydro to amend bioenergy electricity purchase agreements (EPAs) to transfer the biomass fuel price risk through to BC Hydro so that if biomass fuel prices increase, BC Hydro will correspondingly adjust the purchase price of electricity. (I do not like this one)
• Establish a B.C.-owned Biomass Fuel Aggregator to access and aggregate woody biomass from provincial forest land, and supply fuel to bioenergy project developers.
• Increase the Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) Fund from $25 million to $50 million with a commitment to review funding levels every two years. Restructure the ICE Fund with an expanded team of investment professionals and consider moving it outside of government as a separate, stand-alone organization.
• Implement a royalty credit and/or tax credit program to provide the necessary incentives to industry to use clean energy technologies at remote installations in B.C., such as mining, natural gas operations and communities.
• The Province should develop a regional green energy planning process
• The Province should expand the current revenue sharing model to include the sharing of revenue collected by the Province with First Nations on all types of green energy.

Even this list find is full of statements that are really not offering much.   What I was looking for was something with a lot more specifics.   I was looking for detailed background on each recommendation including deadlines and how the recommendation should be implemented.  All in all, the report is short enough on details that it could be used to justify almost any action in relation to green energy in BC.

There are other recommendations that many will say have specific actions for government, but I would argue they are too vague or they are not realistic in BC.

The submission I made to the taskforce had some very specific recommendations with details of what should be achieved and by when.  It also contained a lot more details with respect to scope and scale of power production now and in the future, prices for power here and elsewhere, specific issues with the grid, and where new green power could accessed without building any significant infrastructure.   I am only one person and working on that on the side of my desk.  They taskfroce report does not impress me.

Wind Power does not make people sick

Through Tyler Hamilton of the Toronto Star, I was made aware of a major study of Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects.

The study was done for the Canadian Wind Energy Association and the American Wind Energy Association, so I assume that the results will be dismissed by the people working against wind power. The study was done by the two industry groups because no government agency was willing to do the study.

I looked through the list of the expert panel for the study, and they seem to cover all the bases for the issue and seem to be a reasonable representation for the study. The fact that there were seven people on the panel from all different areas of expertise lends credence to the conclusions. Here is the list of conclusions from the study:

• There is no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects.
• The ground-borne vibrations from wind turbines are too weak to be detected by, or to affect, humans.
• The sounds emitted by wind turbines are not unique. There is no reason to believe, based on the levels and frequencies of the sounds and the panel’s experience with sound exposures in occupational settings, that the sounds from wind turbines could plausibly have direct adverse health consequences.

These seem to fairly clear conclusions. The study is now being out forward for publication in peer reviewed journals. The case is now there for the people arguing that there are health impacts to come up with a study of a similar quality.

Run of the River power

I have been doing some research on some energy issues and doing some comparisons of different energy sources and their relative costs financially, socially and environmentally. In doing this work and developing the report I was going to put in some of the environmental issues with run of river power projects. Guess what, I can not find any measurable data showing any environmental impact from run of the river in BC.

There are people that say run of the river is a problem for wildlife. I looked for any research that shows that wildlife is negatively impacted by run of the river in BC. I could find nothing. No data or research within any of the submissions to the Environmental Assessment process indicated any measurable impact to wildlife

Many people are talking about impact on fish, once again I can not find any data indicating any measurable impact on fish. In fact the majority of the projects I looked at were on sections of water courses that do not have fish within them and are above the fish habitat area. There is no good data I could find that there has been any temperature or water flow changes due to the projects.

Increased human activity is claimed to be detrimental, but I can not see the evidence that the added people from run of the river is measurable above the existing impact of forestry, mineral exploration and tourism.

All the projects approved in the EAO process have mitigation strategies for presumed impacts on the environment. They also have long term data gathering going on. It seems to me that the power companies will be required to improve the environment to something better than before the power project was built.

When I blogged about wind power, I was sent a lot of data on people claiming environmental impacts from the windmills. I may not agree with some of what they are saying, but at least there is data to discuss. When it comes to run of the river I can not find any data indicating a problem. All the data I can find indicates there is no measurable impact.

All I am finding are suppositions of potential problems or wild hyperbole with no backing. I can find nothing to indicate that the operating projects have caused any measurable harm to the environment. I have seen one thing in relation to Miller Creek that there was a problem with water flows in 2007 due to human error. Though it was caught before there was an impact.

These power projects are almost all in areas that are within or close to the timber harvesting land base in BC. The footprint of the power projects is several orders of magnitude smaller than the timber harvesting that is going on in the same areas. As an example, the total footprint of all the new land to be disturbed by the Bute Inlet project of Plutonic Power will be smaller than an average clear cut. This for a project that will produce the scale of power of something like the large hydro electric projects. Williston Resevoir, created by the WAC Bennett dam, has an area of 175 000 hectares. That is an area roughly equal to all the timber harvesting in one year in BC.

To put it in other terms, to use the same footprint as the WAC Bennett dam, there would have to be several thousand Bute Inlet type projects built.

I am happy to read anything out there that indicates there is something measurable going on, though I would love to know where it is hiding.

Best small scale hydro projects in the world

There is a poll at International Water Power and Dam Construction Magazine for the best small hydro project for 2009.

This is the top 10 shortlist:

• McNair Creek Hydroelectric Project, British Columbia, Canada
• Rutherford Creek Hydroelectric Project, British Columbia, Canada
• Khudi Power Project, Nepal
• Ludvika Hydro Power Station, Sweden
• Bethlehem Hydro Project, South Africa
• McLeod Green Energy Project, Ontario, Canada
• Canedo Hydro Plant, Portugal
• Hastings project, Minnesota, US
• Town Mill Hydroelectric Installation, Dorset, UK
• Wainikasou Project, Viti Levu, Fiji

The scale of what needs to happen

At the moment the US produces a bit more than 2 000 000 GWh of power from coal fired power plants. If there is any serious thought to reducing CO2 emissions, then these plants need to be replaced.

If this is to be done over 20 years, this 100 000 GWh of new green energy each and every year. This means we need 30 Bute Inlet projects each year for 20 years just to replace US existing coal fired power.

I have not considered Canadian coal or and oil and gas power production.

BC can go a long way toward providing that power. 400 000 GWhs of green power over the next 20 years is possible here in BC. 800 000 is in theory possible. And this is all green power.

East Toba/Montrose projects get Fed Eco Funding

A press release came out this week announcing the federal government is providing support money to Plutonic Power for their Toba Inlet projects that are under construction.

In BC there are total of 48 projects registered, of which 38 are hydro, 6 are wind, three and biomass and one is goethermal. There are numerous run of the river projects in BC that have signed agreements with Federal Government under this program, though I am not sure that all of them will be built within the timeframes suggested.

The Naikun Wind and Meager Geothermal projects both have signed agreements but I would very surprised to see either one functioning anytime soon.

Of the 58 largest projects listed by MW, only 2 of them are run of the river hydro and both of them are connected to Plutonic Power. Almost all of the rest are wind power projects which have a much lower amount of power they will actually produce in a given year.

Plutonic Power Corporation Signs ecoENERGY Agreement for Funding of the East Toba River Montrose Creek Run-of-River Project

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Feb. 23, 2009) - Plutonic Power Corporation is
pleased to announce that the Toba Montrose General Partnership has signed a Contribution Agreement with the Government of Canada for funding of the East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project under the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program.

Under the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program, the East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project will receive a $10 per MWh incentive over the first ten years of operations, in accordance with the terms of the agreement. Net annual electrical generation from the Project is expected to be 726.95 Gwh per year. Payments will commence once the Project is commissioned, which is on schedule for completion in mid 2010.

"The development of clean, renewable energy projects is instrumental in achieving both Federal
and Provincial governments' initiatives on climate change and Federal support through programs like ecoENERGY are important to the industry's success," said Plutonic Power Vice-Chair and CEO Donald McInnes.

Once completed, the East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project, a partnership with GE Energy Financial Services, will potentially displace an estimated 455,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) annually. This is the equivalent of taking about 80,000 cars off the road per year or planting about 60,000 hectares of trees. With an estimated capital cost of $660 million, this 196 MW project has been under construction since July 2007 and is on budget and on schedule for commercial operation by mid 2010.

About Plutonic Power Corporation
Plutonic Power's vision is to provide leadership and create a legacy through the development of renewable, reliable, clean energy. Its proposed Green Power Corridor(tm), comprised of 39 facilities, including the flagship $660 million, 196 MW East Toba River/Montrose Creek run-of-river project currently under construction, have the design capacity to generate enough energy to meet the annual needs of about 630,000 homes and create approximately 5,500 person years of employment. Once built, the Green Power Corridor(tm) could offset an estimated 4 million tons of CO2 emissions every year - the equivalent to taking as many as 650,000 vehicles off the road. Plutonic is committed to working in partnership with First Nations, stakeholder groups and local communities in the development of all its run-of-river projects. By developing its suite of projects, Plutonic Power will help British Columbia realize its goal of becoming electricity self-sufficient by 2016, meet demand utilizing 90% clean domestic generation sources and will play a significant role in the fight against climate change.


For additional information please contact:

Elisha McCallum
Office: 604-669-4999
elisha.mccallum@plutonic.ca

Western Renewable Energy Zones

I found out about this from an article in the Tyee.

The Western Govenors Association in the US has developed the Western Renewable Energy Zones to quantify the potential for renewable energy in 11 US states, BC, Alberta and Baja Norte. They are seeking input into their project at the moment.

In their plans they clearly see BC as the source for a significant portion of the renewable energy in western North America. In total they see 11.4% of the power coming from BC, closer to one fifth of the total when solar is factored out. This table shows that they potential they assign to BC a majority of the hydro power in western North America, a total of 69% of all of the hydro power.

In the wind category they assign 14.6% of the total to BC. The document calls for 118 790 MW of power to come from wind in the west. This is a huge expansion of wind power, a scale I had not imagined at all.

They have nothing apportioned for BC based solar power, though I doubt this would ever be a major source of electrical power.

The geothermal potential in BC is also barely touched, there are some very significant possible geothermal sources in BC.

The renewable energy sources they map out does not include any bio-mass generated power. We already have a number of bio-mass operations functioning here in BC already.

We should reduce our use of power

Conservation is one of the big solutions proposed by people opposed to the emerging green power projects in BC and elsewhere. Fine, nice thing to say, but how are you going to do that? To reduce consumption you need to raise the price of power and by a lot. Raising power rates is political suicide. Over and over again people make it clear they are happy with cheap power. One of the threats the advocates for public power use is that private power will cost more.

BC Hydro has worked hard to reduce consumption in BC and as of the end of fiscal 2008 they achieved a savings of 2,844 GW/h per year. There is still a huge reduction needed to make any sort of realistic dent and this is in an era of when our population is still growing. The only way we will get people to make a lot more changes in their electricity use, to get them to conserve, is to raise the rates of power dramatically. To get major conservation of power in BC we would be looking at an immediate doubling of electricity rates and a goal of getting the rates to four to five times as high as now.

Even if here in BC could dramatically reduce our per capita use of electricity, there is still a lot of brown power out there in other locations. When we produce green power here, we reduce the need for coal fired power plants elsewhere.

Each kilowatt of green power from BC is one that does not need to come from some other source. Each run of the river hydro project has defacto zero CO2 emissions versus all the coal and gas plants in the rest of North America. If we do not build them here, it is going to that much harder for other regions to reduce their CO2.

We have a responsibility in this region to make use of the resources we have to provide for people everywhere. We do not live in isolation in our houses, cities, provinces or countries. In BC we are sitting on a large part of the renewable energy solution for all of North America, we owe it to everyone to develop as much run of the river hydro as is sustainable on our rivers as quickly as is possible.

Run of the River in BC

This issue is being distorted so badly in BC at the moment. There is a movement of people that are seeking to stop run of the river for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with the environment, though they hide things in a patina of illogical environmental reasons.

The opposition to run of the river power projects is tarring anyone with environmental beliefs as being short sighted.

I realized there would be problems in BC with run of the river hydro projects when some years back the Squamish Lillooet Regional District created criteria that they would apply to decide if they would approve run of the river hydro. The criteria vis a vis environmental impacts were fine and did not present significant hurdles to development. I believe that because virtually all run of the river projects would be able to comfortably pass through the environmental reviews that they created a completely arbitray one. The SLRD could turn down a project based on the asthetics - if they decided they did not like the look of it, they could turn it down.

The SLRD wanted to be able to turn down projects that would benefit the environment because someone thought they might look ugly.

Bute Inlet and Plutonic Power
The frenzy around the Bute Inlet projects of Plutonic Power is stunning. There seems to be this sense that the project will destroy a pristine wilderness. That the region will be massively industrialized. All of this is rhetoric without basis in fact.

The area has been roaded and has been actively logged for many years. The road up the Homathko goes past where the power projects are. The Homathko has been heavily logged over the years. The area has an airstrip.

There is also an existing run of the river hydro system in the area, it is used to power the needs of the Homathko camp four tourists.

The Teaquahan has an existing road going as far as the location of the project, the same with the Southgate. The lower Southgate is also staked through mineral claims and has a potential for a copper mine.

The Orford river has a proposed resort development on it.

This is area is not a pristine wilderness. It has not been set aside as a protected area. The project may be rated for the same number power level as Site C, but the big difference is that the Bute Inlet projects have a tiny footprint on the ground in comparison.

So what are the possible impact of these power projects?
Negative impact on salmon spawning - if Plutonic can not design their stuff to have no impact on the fish, then I am not sure why they are in business. There are standards they need to achieve. This assumes that one could even measure their impact when compared to the impact of exsiting uses such as forestry. There is a fish hatchery in the area operated by First Nations.

Habitat fragmentation - this has already occured through forestry.

Impact on grizzly bears - the bears seem to manage to deal with forestry activities and with the tourists coming into the area.

Increased human presence in the area - I seriously doubt that the number of people will be enough for anyone to measure a change over time.

The project is going through the BC Environmental Assessment process. This process will consider even the most minor potential impacts of the project and will require many modifications to the plans and a detailed environmental monitoring plan. I am 100% certain that the EA process will require Plutonic to gather more information on the wildlife in the Bute inlet area than has ever been done before. I am also certain that Plutonic will be required to monitor wildlife in Bute inlet long term and enact mitigation strategies if there is an impact.

If your issue with Plutonic Power's Bute Inlet project is wildlife, then the EA process will end up addressing all your issues.

Why Oppose Run of the River?
It seems to be that the primary opposition to run of the river in BC is not for environmental reasons, but because it is being done by the private sector. Certainly that seems to be the main thrust behind Citizens for Public Power and IPP Watch.

In this Georgia Straight article, Gwen Barlee of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee calls for a moratorium.

The Wilderness Committee is calling for an immediate moratorium on the development of private power projects. In an era of climate change and diminishing oil reserves, it makes no sense for us to lose control of public production of hydroelectricity. Our publicly owned power system already has one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world, and as we move forward to address climate change we can do so in a way that is democratic, properly planned, protects the environment, and benefits our province.

Her argument makes no logical sense. Note, she is not saying there should be no run of the river, there should simply be no private power projects.

BC has had private power generation and delivery in place since we first switched on a light. BC Hydro has purchased power from private producers for decades.

Private developers of projects benefit us in numerous ways, the first one that comes to mind is that it is the developer that has to borrow the money to build the project and not the public. The private developer has a very high interest in being efficient, the staff are rewarded for doing things better than before. The private developer will pay property taxes and corporate income taxes, neither of which would be paid by a public development.

The fact that a private company is developing the project has no relevance to the environmental issues being considered.

What is important to see is that business is willing to spend a lot of money on green projects. There are businesses out there you can invest in that are committed to dealing with climate change. People invest a lot of money each year, the general public owns most of the publically traded companies in Canada through their RRSPs and pension funds. A company like Plutonic Power offers a place for those investment dollars to go to other than something like GM or Ford. Though most people do not pay attention to what they are investing in.

Think about it, private businesses want to spend tens of billions of dollars on projects that will reduce CO2. There is no government that could even concieve of the solution the private sector is offering us at no cost.

If Climate Change Matters to You
If this is an issue that you care about, opposing run of the river projects in BC is not going to move things forward. BC is uniquely set up to provide huge amounts of run of the river green power to North America. We have numerous steep small rivers along the coast of BC, the perfect set up for run of the river power production, the bigger the drop the more power you can produce. Few other areas in North America have the ideal streams for this power.

Each KWh that can be produced will make it easier for fossil fuel power plants to produce less power.

Wind Power is not Green?

The situation with green power production is getting very Orwellian in my opinion. There are arguments out there that wind power is the least green power source of power possible - well "industrial scale" wind is the worst. The use of industrial scale is a nice touch.

So the argument I am getting from people opposed to wind power is that it is not green at all because wind power needs to be backed up by other sources of electrical power to deal with the times when the wind is not blowing or there is a change in the wind. They are arguing that wind power does not in the end reduce CO2 emissions at all because of this.

What they are saying is that to be certain of the power supply, there needs to be a back up to the wind turbines. In Ontario this would be a coal fired power plant running at 60% to make sure that a drop in production from the turbines can be replaced if needed. So this would mean no reduction in CO2 emissions according to them. The final step in their argument seems to be missing a step of logic - I can not work out how they apply CO2 emissions to a KWh or wind produced power.

Let us say you need to run some other plant at 60% to back up the turbines, that still means 40% less CO2 emissions. The power from the coal fired plants would still be used to provide power to the grid. Even a 40% reduction in coal fired power 50% of the time would make a huge difference to the CO2 emissions in North America, something in the order of 400 000 000 tonnes of CO2 per year. But this supposes there is no option but to have this full back of wind as needs to be done at the moment.

On a small scale I can see full scale back up as being needed over a small geographic area such as Denmark. If the wind stops blowing in one place in Denmark, it stops everywhere. Denmark is smaller than Nova Scotia, it is smaller than some parks in BC. It is also very flat so either they have wind or they do not. This problem disappears if one looks at the bigger scale, with enough geographic variation the winds will be varied over the whole region.

On a bigger scale there would be wind turbines over a wide a range, wide enough that there is realistically going to be wind at some of the locations. I see it like a distributed network. In Canada the back up for wind eventually could be hydro, they are well matched for this. Large scale hydro is very easy to turn on and off as needed and as wind takes on a share of the baseload, hydro can be turned down and up as needed.

The Danes suffer from the fact that they are a very small country with the same weather everywhere - there is no real variation to allow for some areas to have wind and others not. Europe needs to be a single integrated grid so that when the wind blows in Denmark they can produce all the power they can and when it is not blowing they can get power for some location in Europe where it is blowing.

As you bring more and more wind online and have a consistent underlying base load from the turbines, you can start shutting down the coal plants. You need to think on a large enough scale on the continent to see that it does work.

In North America with have several north-south integrated grids, all of them are large enough that wind be a good addition to the mix and provide, over the whole grid, a consistent source of electricity. Each KWh of wind still remains a KWh of power that does not need to be produced from coal.

At the end of the day, each KWh of wind is still one that is produced without CO2 emissions.