On Friday July 10 evening, Denmark produced 116% of national demand; the number jumped to 140% at 3am when the demand dropped.  Electricity was exported to Germany, Norway and Sweden.  EnergiNet.dk, the grid operator in Denmark posts almost realtime information about wind production in Denmark at http://energinet.dk/EN/El/Sider/Elsystemet-lige-nu.aspx.  

For whole year of 2014, wind produced 39.1% of electricity consumed in Denmark.  There has been a steady rise in the past 6 years (from http://energinet.dk/EN/El/Nyheder/Sider/Vindmoeller-slog-rekord-i-2014.aspx):

The wind power share of power consumption over the last ten years
2013: 32.7% (* Adjusted for solar cells)
2012: 32.0% (* Adjusted for solar cells)
2011: 28.3%
2010: 22.0%
2009: 19.4%
2008: 19.3%
2007: 19.9%
2006: 17.0%
2005: 18.7%
2004: 18.8%

Deepwater wind's 30MW offshore wind project in Block Island Rhode Island is the first wind farm in US to reach financial close.

It will feature five Alstom 6MW turbines with rotor diameter of 150m.

For details see http://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/article/first-us-offshore-wind-pr...

Egypt has qualified 49 wind projects in the latest round of tenders.

Egypt has a tiered feed-in tariff based on wind resource:

Years 1 to 5.  $114.8/MWh for 2,500 to 3,000 operating hours; and $95.7 for 3,100 to 4,000 operating hours.

Years 6 to 20.  Sliding scale.

For more see http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1328019/egypt-qualifies-49-compa...

US installed 4.7GW in 2014, for total installed capacity of 64.2GW

China installed 20.7GW in 2014, for total installed capacity of 96GW

Germany installed 3.2GW

Brazil installed 2.7GW

India installed 2.3GW

Unique in 2014:  1GW was repowered with new turbines on existing project sites.

For details see, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-22/u-s-wind-power-installations-ro...

According to the report, onshore wind is the most cost competitive sources of not only renewable energy but also fossil-fuel based energy.

Note hydro is the only one that has a lower cost than wind in some cases, but it variability is high. 

Source: IRENA report on Renewable Power Generation Cost in 2014.  http://www.irena.org/menu/index.aspx?mnu=Subcat&PriMenuID=36&CatID=141&S....

More details at:  http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/19/new-report-confirms-renewable-power-...

http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecur...

https://www.gridprotectionalliance.org/gsdefault.htm

For details see http://aweablog.org/blog/post/a-step-forward-california-governor-propose...

CA is shooting for 33% RE by 2020.  This is likely to change the daily load curve.  With high solar penetration, in summer the load curve will match solar generation, while in winter, the net load curve will have two peaks--early morning and evening.  California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has initiated these to mitigate the impact (Source: North American WindPower, Jan 2015):

- Increased focus on flexible resources

- Implementation of a storage mandate

- Market design enhancements for intra-hour scheduling

- Creation of energy imbalance market

- Development of time-of-use pricing

- Assessment of demand response options

In 1999 more than 95% of the turbines installed in the US were Class I; in 2013, more than 65% of the turbines are Class III.  In the same period, the average specific power has dropped from more than 390 W/m2 to about 250 W/m2.  

Turbine manufacturers and independent engineers are approving Class III turbines for sites with Class II wind speeds & turbulence.  This is done after site-specific load analysis of the turbine.  The reasons are Class III turbines produce more energy because of larger rotor.

IEC 61400-1 specifies Class requirements for turbines in terms of a) Vref, which is onsite 50 year extreme wind speed computed based on 10-min average, and b) Iref, which is onsite turbulence intensity (TI) at wind speed of 7.5 to 8 m/s.  Part (a) determines Class I, II, III or IV, while part (b) determines A, B, C.  

Part (a).  Although the IEC standard specifies classification in terms of Vref, a more practical classification is in terms of annual average wind speed has evolved.  Vref is difficult to compute because unavailability of dataset of sufficient size, so for a quick classification average wind speed is used.  Note, the manufacturer or an independent engineer will still compute Vref before approving the turbine class.

Class I:  Wind speed up to 10 m/s

Class II:  Wind speed up to 8.5 m/s

Class III: Wind speed up to 7.5 m/s

Class IV:  Wind speed 6 m/s

Part (b).  Here X is I, II, III or IV.

Class X A:  TI less than 0.16

Class X B:  TI less than 0.14

Class X C:  TI less than 0.12

So a wind turbine classified as Class IIIA is designed for wind conditions: Average wind speed is less than 7.5 m/s, and TI is less than 0.16.

Source:  North American WindPower, January 2015.