Wind Turbines DR1 Forum Item #80

Hi Richard, and Georgios,

You are both right. It all depends on what reliability the customer needs, what he is willing to pay, and what solutions are available. From my previous 99% - 100% comment, it should be obvious that some customers are happy with 1% reliability shortage. Those that require better reliability than is available from what existing solutions can offer, have to use redundancy to have smaller reliability shortages. That is why off system capacity becomes expensive. Power industry interconnection is the solution.

That is why the vertically integrated power industry was the most important technology of the 20th century. Deregulation of wholesale markets without deregulation of retail markets has been found to be the flaw the electric power industry is facing. The result: an unstable business system that is unable to resist shocks. Demand Response is the key to a robust and efficient solution, which was not possible in the second wave. As transactions costs become insignificant in the third wave, the vertically integrated power industry becomes inefficient, with respect to a fully functioning deregulated electricity market.