Calculation of ongoing ancillary costs

I don’t need to be a prophet for this; it will not happen. On the one hand, because wind power is not capable of providing baseload. It simply lacks the ability to regulate electricity production in a targeted manner. On the other hand, because the capacities are not even available to massively install wind turbines within a few years. And even with many wind turbines, the problem of calm periods remains, which in midwinter are automatically also dark doldrums.

Offshore wind turbines are already almost capable of providing baseload today. You just need enough in many different locations, then the chance of calm everywhere is virtually zero.

Offshore wind turbines are already almost baseload-capable today. You just need to have enough in many different locations, then the chance that there is no wind everywhere is zero.

Then a Russian or an American comes and blows up the line... and no one was there.

Offshore wind turbines are already almost base load capable today. You just need enough in many different locations, then the chance of calm everywhere is practically zero.

You are not wrong with that statement, but it does not work 1:1 in the southern part of the country, because the wind there does not blow nearly as reliably as it does out at sea. In addition, consumption is higher in the more densely populated south and the base load peaks are also greater. Wind power here should therefore be seen more as a supplement. The hours of sunshine are more attractive here, and towards the Alps we can think more about weirs and pumped storage due to increasing river density. The TU Munich has an interesting project running with a shaft power plant which I got to know as part of my seminar paper. I see something like that more for the south of the country and it has the advantage of "real" base load capability.

Then a Russian or an American comes and blows up the pipeline... and there was no one.

You have an interesting point there. For the supply of gas from Russia, we had 2 pipelines in operation. For the supply from wind power, there will be hundreds of wind farms with hundreds of cables. They are much harder to sabotage just because of the sheer quantity, certainly not completely.

By the way, base load capability is no longer a problem beyond a critical amount of solar and wind energy installations, it averages out. Much more problematic is the peak load. For that, you need storage.

By the way, baseload capability is no longer a problem from a critical amount of solar and wind energy plants, it averages out...

You should reconsider this statement regarding baseload capability very carefully because it is completely wrong. A lull at night and you are out. Baseload capability means being able to ramp energy demand up and down at certain power levels at any time of day or night. Currently, this can only be reliably done with nuclear, coal, gas, hydro, partly pumped-storage, and to a very limited extent with combustion power plants. But not with photovoltaics or wind energy without having previously stored the energy they generated somewhere in large quantities. There have been model experiments using energy from wind turbines to operate pumped-storage power plants, but even there limits were quickly reached.

Offshore wind turbines are already nearly base-load capable today. You just need to have enough in many different locations, then the chance that there is no wind everywhere is practically zero.

Germany has quite little area for offshore wind power and it usually depends on the same weather system. Because the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are not that far apart. This is only apparent diversification. And then there is the problem of bringing the electricity to the south. Because there is simply much less wind there and the better solar ratio only helps in summer.