Increasing the contribution of electricity generated from renewable energy sources is a declared EU policy goal. A substantial part of this electricity will be generated by wind or solar power, i.e. by non-dispatchable technologies. In this talk, the challenges of integrating both intermittent and non-intermittent generation into markets and grids will be discussed for the case of Germany where the installed capacity of wind and solar power had reached respectively 27 and 17 GW by the end of 2010. In the German spot market for electricity, this has even led to negative prices [1]. Therefore, a focus of the talk will be the regulatory framework in Germany to analyse the players affected most by the challenges imposed by fluctuating electricity generation.

[1] Genoese, Fabio; Genoese, Massimo, Wietschel, Martin. Occurrence of negative prices on the German spot market for electricity and their influence on balancing power markets. 7th International Conference on the European Energy Market (EEM), Madrid, 23-25 June 2010