zlacker

It's not surprising at all. Given the intermittent nature of wind/solar power, it would be a huge waste of transmission network capacity built to the maximum producing capacity.

So, unless a storage facility is available, you will continue to see lots of wind/solar power get discarded as it's the most economical way: it's much more expensive to shut down or reduce output of other type of power generation such as gas or coal plants.

>>mrjin+(OP)
For a given production of wind I would agree with you, but the installed capacity is only going to go up for the foreseeable, so the network needs to take that into account

>>alex_d+O5
Oh well, yes and no. Assuming the demand maintains the same, unless something can fill up the gap when wind/solar dropped quickly enough, the current capacity of coal/gas plant simply cannot be reduced or the whole power grid will for sure be brought down by such fluctuations. But if the current capacity of coal/gas plant cannot be reduced, then there isn't much point in increasing solar/wind generation capacity. It's an interlocked problem, cannot be solved by simply changing one parameter only IMO.