Windpower

These data are from reference1 and from reference2.   And, below, an excerpt reference1:

So what's going on with wind power as a source of electric?   Well, overall its still growing.  And this is a good thing,   But in some places its been overbuilt, or too much built too soon, and this is causing problems.

Germany has a serious issue in that conventional grid electric suppliers at certain times of the day actually have to pay to have the grid take their electric!  This is because the wind and solar generated electric are heavily subsidized and, at times when the winds and the sunshine both peak, the grid has too much electric. The more conventional electric generating operations (coal fired plants and nuclear) cannot turn down their output because they require hours or days to shut down and then start back up.  Further, because the conventional electric suppliers are taking a big hit in the money they receive for their electric they are having to turn to the cheapest fuel in order to keep from going bankrupt. This fuel is coal - the dirtiest and most polluting of the fossil fuels.  Here's a great article on this from The Economist.

I would imagine that Spain, Portugal and Italy are experiencing similar problems. When the wind blows there is too much electric, and when it doesn't they don't have enough. These countries have spent a lot of public money on the wind systems, and, considering their high national debts and low employment issues, they can ill afford this situation.

THE problem with high dependence on power from wind (or solar) is lack of energy storage systems. The technological solution exists, but its implementation will take time and will be costly. That solution is hydroelectric storage:  build lakes on mountaintops that are several hundred meters above similar lakes at the mountain bases. When the wind is blowing and electric power is in excess, pump water to the upper lakes. When the grid supply of electric is low, send water from the upper lakes to the lower lakes by route of turbines that turn electric generators. Such systems already exist and work quite well - there is only about 20% energy loss in the full storage/release cycle.

I expect it may take 10 years or more to fund and build the hydroelectric storage systems and grid expansions to complement the wind generated electric capacities in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy.

Until that time, natural gas might be used as a stopgap. Gas fired power plants can be turned on and off fairly readily, and pollute much less than coal plants.  For NIMBY reasons (not in my back yard!) most of Europe appears unready to tap into their shale gas resources.   Another option that some are looking into for energy storage is hydrogen.   Excess electric can be used to dissociate water into hydrogen + oxygen.   Then the hydrogen can later be used as a fuel to generate electric when needed.   But currently this is more costly than hydroelectric energy storage.   Hydrogen is not easy to store, and hydrogen fuel cells - the high efficiency means to convert back to electric - are quite expensive.   Hydrogen/wind systems are still in the early development stage: government hydrogen/wind project.