Denmark led with Wind farms and seems to be leading again with the installation of 'clean' standardized H2 stations and FCEVs.

Where Wind and/or Solar and Hydro clean energy is available, H2 production and storage is a very clean solution to manage intermittent energy sources and supply clean H2 for FCEVs.

An FCEV can supply enough energy for the average home for one full week or more. Also ideal to manage peak loads and/or power grid failures.

Do the Danes just 'give away their surplus when it is too windy?' Seeing as how they can export electricity to Norway, Sweden and Germany which all have large hydro capacity it seems to me they're already storing it for later use.

@Ai vin:

It does depend on the market and Denmark loses massively on electricity trades.

Basically they have the power when everyone else has too, and need to buy power when it is in short supply across northern Europe.

I agree with Nick and they should build nuclear which works great with battery cars, but they ain't doing that and the high renewables route definitely needs hydrogen for storage.

It is still a very expensive way of doing things, but can be made to work, just about, which is impossible without hydrogen storage.

Intermittent clean energy sources like Wind and Solar are ideal for clean H2 generation and storage. Cost per kWh and H2/Kg will come down and will soon be below the current $7+/gal for gasoline in most countries in EU.

Everybody will gain when ICEVs and CPPs are phased out.

I will like to go to vacation in Denmark very soon as here in Canada they do nothing about efficient energy like the atrotious tar sands of in the east imported petrol. They should like them here in montreal Canada.

Right. 48% of Denmark's electricity comes from coal which is import from outside of Europe. But the implied claim that they are taking a loss by exporting wind energy seems intuitively wrong: There is an alternative to generating too much wind energy - you simply turn off some of the turbines. If the Danes are choosing to keep them generating at times of high wind and export the power they must be seeing some kind of benefit. Maybe in a purchase agreement to get the energy back when they need it, maybe as an offset to imports they would have to make regardless, whatever/I don't know. I did find this from wikipedia;

"Annual wind power production is currently (2012-2013) equal to about 30% of electricity consumed in Denmark.[2] The proportion of this that is actually consumed in Denmark has been disputed, with claims of up to 40% of wind power being exported,[25][26] countered by claims that only 1% was exported.[27] According to the first argument, power in excess of immediate demand is exported to Germany, Norway, and Sweden. The latter two have considerable hydropower resources, which can rapidly reduce their generation whenever wind farms are generating surplus power, saving water for later, and can export electricity to Denmark when wind power output drops. The benefit of this goes to Denmark's neighbours: when Denmark's wind farms are exporting power, it is sold at the spot market price, which sometimes falls to near or below zero.[28] According to the second argument, the correlation between exports and wind power is weak, and a similar correlation exists with conventional thermal plants; meanwhile, causal analysis shows that export from Denmark typically occurs as a consequence of the merit order effect, when large thermal plants have reserve capacities at times the spot market price of electricity is high. In any case, the export price is the intermediate between the prices of the two areas, so the exporting TSO (Energinet) uses the profit to relieve tariffs.[29] This service of timeshifting production and consumption is also found around the world in pumped-storage hydroelectricity balancing coal and nuclear plants. Wind power organizations state that Denmark exports power at a higher price than it imports at.[30]"

Complicating the issue is that the Danish grid is actually two grids, the connection between the west and east can only handle so much so the balance between imports and exports must be done for both; http://docs.wind-watch.org/dk-analysis-wind.pdf

Also complicating the issue is that in Denmark thermal power plants also supply district heating so they can't simply be shut off on a cold winter night when the wind would otherwise be strong enough to allow that. This could chance as they are looking into storing excess wind energy as heat. And also as the growing trend in Passihaus buildings reduces the need for heating.

Seeing as how they can export electricity to Norway, Sweden and Germany which all have large hydro capacity it seems to me they're already storing it for later use.

Or they're deferring use (by deferring the consumption of water behind Swedish and Norwegian dams).

Denmark has the highest electric rates in Europe, and very dirty (in terms of both CO2 and ash production) power as well.  Neighboring Sweden has about 1/15 the per-kWh emissions of Denmark.  Sweden achieves this using hydro and... nuclear.

We'll see if Denmark can "make it work", or if they go broke first.

Perhaps I am being a bit grumpy.
I always get prickly when people start talking about their intuition which IMO is only trotted out when even the person concerned knows that they have a flimsy or non-existent rational case, but want to sound as though they can still say something worthwhile.

My intuition tells me I should forgive you. ;^)

Harvey D:

This pro nuclear poster supported solar for the last 40 years or so.

Where I differ from many of its advocates is that I support using it where it is sunny, which is far too picky for many to be bothered with.

Much of the world lives within 20 degrees or so of the equator, and solar can work really well there especially in rural areas, where it will enable billions to improve their lives.

What it does not do and can never do is substitute for nuclear power in northern latitudes.

Pro-nuclear and pro-fossil fuels power plants posters seem to forget that those energy sources already got and are still getting huge direct and indirect subsidies.

Oil wars have cost USA over $30,000 billion USD ($17,000 billions for the last Irak war) in indirect subsidies in the last 30 years or so plus many $$ billions in direct subsidies.

Nuclear industries received huge subsidies for decades.

With the same subsidies, solar and wind energies cost could be as low as the energy produced by the non-sustainable sources.

Another way to level the playing field would be to apply appropriate compensations such as:

1) $100/tonne on GHG produced by CPPs and NGPPs and/
2) $0.05/kWh in a clean up fund for nuclear wastes disposal.

That way, future clean energy + storage could become cheaper than CPPs, NGPPs and Nuke power plants.

I think intermittent, non-dispatchable RE sources will find their best use in environmental remediation, such as creating carbon sinks.  If people are relying on them to supply immediate needs, they'll turn to FFs whenever the RE isn't available.