Empirical Assessment of Wind Power’s Capacity Credit: A European Case Study

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the intrinsic capacity credit of onshore wind power across twelve European countries, based on hourly measured data for 2019 and 2024. Capacity credit was calculated as a function of acceptable default risk, under the assumption that wind power alone must satisfy total demand. The results show a wide range of outcomes across individual countries and highlight the effects of spatial aggregation, where the combined regional system performs better than its constituents. A nonlinear model was fitted to describe the relationship between capacity credit and risk probability. Additionally, several hypothetical spatial distributions of installed capacity were evaluated using statistical criteria, illustrating how coordination could affect adequacy outcomes. The analysis was based exclusively on observed data, without additional modeling assumptions, and the proposed method is generalizable to other generation technologies and planning scenarios.