Future energy systems rely increasingly on the wind power supply. Understanding its characteristics is essential for the functioning of future electricity systems. Critical low wind situations may endanger the security of supply. So far, historical observations of wind power production are limited to few recent historical years and may not suffice to quantify the expected overall wind contribution, its variability, and its regional balancing effects for future electricity systems. With a novel long-term high-resolution wind power production dataset (hourly on a 6 x 6 km grid for 20 years) we derive new insights. First, we find advantages of our high-resolution dataset compared to previous studies. Second, we find a strong variation in annual wind production (variation of up to 14% for Germany). And third, we find a potential benefit from electricity exchange with neighboring countries in low wind conditions (for Germany in 81% of the low wind situations). The results are highly relevant for further investigation on the level of secured capacity or to identify optimal power transmission capacities within energy market modeling. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.