Wind Energy Contribution to a Sustainable Transport: The Case of Spain

Transportation accounts for almost one third of the total final energy consumption of Spain. This energy demand is almost completely met by oil, which in the case of this country, with almost no oil sources, must be imported. Meanwhile, wind energy is becoming an important component in the country’s electricity generation portfolio, with a four fold increase in the last 5 years, going up to 8 GW installed power in 2004 and a planned upgrading to 20 MW predicted for 2010. So in a medium term scenario, this wind energy will become an important component, bigger than 30%, in the country’s electricity power generation system. Therefore, full exploitation of wind energy for transportation should be, from an economical point of view, a must. The two above-mentioned problems: coverage of transportation energy needs and full use of wind park capabilities, together with a third one related to the environmental impact of the use of oil in such a big quantity, could be solved if a hydrogen economy is successfully applied in the transportation sector. The critical questions are: (1) how much electricity would be required to make this solution possible and (2) by what scenario can surplus wind energy be best used to meet transportation energy needs, at least partly. In this paper, different scenarios for the use of the electricity generated in the wind parks for hydrogen production are proposed, deducing for each one the fraction on oil requirements that can be removed and the technical and economical viability of such scenarios in order to reach a sustainable transport in Spain.