(Bloomberg) -- Europe’s power prices soared to levels last seen during the energy crisis this week. Only it wasn’t a war or other geopolitical events that caused it, but the dark, windless weather that is all too common during winter.
The continent has rapidly expanded its capacity to generate wind and solar power, but still relies on costly hydrocarbons as a back up. For instance, while Germany gets more than 49 gigawatts of wind power on the gustiest days, only around 1% of that record was being generated on Wednesday, with expensive fossil fuels plugging the gap.
The “Dunkelflaute” phenomenon — known in power markets by the German word for periods when little to no solar or wind energy can be produced — poses a significant issue for energy infrastructure that relies on renewables. Flexibility and storage are widely seen as a way to cushion against intermittent supply, but aren’t being built out at the necessary speed.
The lack of wind means the region has seen its biggest drawdown in gas reserves yet this heating season, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe show. While inventories remain above 94% full on average, the drop has occurred during a period of relatively mild weather ahead of the colder months.
While Germany added 3,600 megawatts of wind capacity last year, it only added 80 megawatts of battery output capacity, according to BloombergNEF.
The path to net zero “requires more than a rapid rollout of renewables” according to Pranav Menon, a research associate at Aurora Energy Research. Building long-duration storage options and gas plants is also very important.
Ensuring security of supply is challenging, he added, as firm dispatchable power production isn’t always used or remunerated. The UK has a capacity mechanism that pays plants for remaining available and Germany has plans to roll out a similar scheme.
The UK, which turned off its last coal plant earlier this year, has often solved its intermittency issues by importing more electricity from other countries during periods of low wind and sun. However, this week the lack of wind has been widespread across Europe.
(Updates with gas withdrawals and weather in fourth paragraph.)
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