IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v90y2016icp469-480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economically optimal configuration of onshore horizontal axis wind turbines

Author

Listed:
  • Muche, Thomas
  • Pohl, Ralf
  • Höge, Christin

Abstract

During the recent years, the use of new materials and enhanced production processes led to successively increasing sizing parameter – namely rotor diameter, rated power and hub height – of wind turbines as well as decreasing initial and running costs. The thereby risen market share shows that wind energy projects are an interesting field for financial investors. In this connection the question arises, how investors benefit from the mentioned technical developments. Regarding the utility maximization of investors in turbine projects, goal of this survey is to determine the economically optimal turbine configuration in contrast to the technically feasible by maximizing the net present value. For this purpose, a generalized approximation of the power curve of three-bladed, direct-driven, variable speed horizontal axis wind turbines is applied. For estimation of the economic parameters, a complex mass-cost-model is used for determination of the initial costs as a function of the sizing parameter. Thereby, a method is shown for adjustment of this model to several differences in price levels of the different turbine components. Furthermore, detailed relationships for running costs as well as the estimation of the cost of equity capital are shown. Due to the current importance of feed-in tariff, revenues for electricity sale depend on the German “Renewable Energy Act”. The calculation of economically optimal sizing parameter first is done for a reference site in conjunction with a sensitivity analysis to determine the most influential sizing parameter with respect to economic viability. Afterwards, a range of typically onshore wind speeds in Germany is considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Muche, Thomas & Pohl, Ralf & Höge, Christin, 2016. "Economically optimal configuration of onshore horizontal axis wind turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 469-480.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:90:y:2016:i:c:p:469-480
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148116300052
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2016.01.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    2. Blanco, María Isabel, 2009. "The economics of wind energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1372-1382, August.
    3. Chowdhury, Souma & Zhang, Jie & Messac, Achille & Castillo, Luciano, 2012. "Unrestricted wind farm layout optimization (UWFLO): Investigating key factors influencing the maximum power generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 16-30.
    4. González, Javier Serrano & Gonzalez Rodriguez, Angel G. & Mora, José Castro & Santos, Jesús Riquelme & Payan, Manuel Burgos, 2010. "Optimization of wind farm turbines layout using an evolutive algorithm," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1671-1681.
    5. Haas, Reinhard & Panzer, Christian & Resch, Gustav & Ragwitz, Mario & Reece, Gemma & Held, Anne, 2011. "A historical review of promotion strategies for electricity from renewable energy sources in EU countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 1003-1034, February.
    6. Jiang, Haibo & Li, Yanru & Cheng, Zhongqing, 2015. "Performances of ideal wind turbine," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 658-662.
    7. Oliver Probst & Diego Cárdenas, 2010. "State of the Art and Trends in Wind Resource Assessment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 3(6), pages 1-55, June.
    8. Kaldellis, J. K. & Gavras, Th. J., 2000. "The economic viability of commercial wind plants in Greece A complete sensitivity analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 509-517, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Duong Minh Ngoc & Kuaanan Techato & Le Duc Niem & Nguyen Thi Hai Yen & Nguyen Van Dat & Montri Luengchavanon, 2021. "A Novel 10 kW Vertical Axis Wind Tree Design: Economic Feasibility Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-22, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Souma Chowdhury & Ali Mehmani & Jie Zhang & Achille Messac, 2016. "Market Suitability and Performance Tradeoffs Offered by Commercial Wind Turbines across Differing Wind Regimes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-31, May.
    2. Zhang, Jie & Chowdhury, Souma & Messac, Achille & Castillo, Luciano, 2012. "A Response Surface-Based Cost Model for Wind Farm Design," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 538-550.
    3. Mittal, Prateek & Kulkarni, Kedar & Mitra, Kishalay, 2016. "A novel hybrid optimization methodology to optimize the total number and placement of wind turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 133-147.
    4. Antonio Colmenar-Santos & Severo Campíez-Romero & Lorenzo Alfredo Enríquez-Garcia & Clara Pérez-Molina, 2014. "Simplified Analysis of the Electric Power Losses for On-Shore Wind Farms Considering Weibull Distribution Parameters," Energies, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-30, October.
    5. Guirguis, David & Romero, David A. & Amon, Cristina H., 2017. "Gradient-based multidisciplinary design of wind farms with continuous-variable formulations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 279-291.
    6. Park, Jinkyoo & Law, Kincho H., 2015. "Layout optimization for maximizing wind farm power production using sequential convex programming," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 320-334.
    7. Hayat, Imran & Chatterjee, Tanmoy & Liu, Huiwen & Peet, Yulia T. & Chamorro, Leonardo P., 2019. "Exploring wind farms with alternating two- and three-bladed wind turbines," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 764-774.
    8. Chowdhury, Souma & Zhang, Jie & Messac, Achille & Castillo, Luciano, 2013. "Optimizing the arrangement and the selection of turbines for wind farms subject to varying wind conditions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 273-282.
    9. McInerney, Celine & Bunn, Derek W., 2017. "Optimal over installation of wind generation facilities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 87-96.
    10. Gao, Xiaoxia & Yang, Hongxing & Lu, Lin, 2014. "Investigation into the optimal wind turbine layout patterns for a Hong Kong offshore wind farm," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 430-442.
    11. Nicolas Kirchner-Bossi & Fernando Porté-Agel, 2018. "Realistic Wind Farm Layout Optimization through Genetic Algorithms Using a Gaussian Wake Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-26, November.
    12. Serrano González, Javier & Burgos Payán, Manuel & Santos, Jesús Manuel Riquelme & González-Longatt, Francisco, 2014. "A review and recent developments in the optimal wind-turbine micro-siting problem," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 133-144.
    13. Muhammad Nabeel Hussain & Nadeem Shaukat & Ammar Ahmad & Muhammad Abid & Abrar Hashmi & Zohreh Rajabi & Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq, 2022. "Effective Realization of Multi-Objective Elitist Teaching–Learning Based Optimization Technique for the Micro-Siting of Wind Turbines," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-24, July.
    14. Chowdhury, Souma & Zhang, Jie & Messac, Achille & Castillo, Luciano, 2012. "Unrestricted wind farm layout optimization (UWFLO): Investigating key factors influencing the maximum power generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 16-30.
    15. Abdulrahman, Mamdouh & Wood, David, 2017. "Investigating the Power-COE trade-off for wind farm layout optimization considering commercial turbine selection and hub height variation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(PB), pages 267-278.
    16. Tao, Siyu & Xu, Qingshan & Feijóo, Andrés & Zheng, Gang & Zhou, Jiemin, 2020. "Nonuniform wind farm layout optimization: A state-of-the-art review," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    17. Aguayo, Maichel M. & Fierro, Pablo E. & De la Fuente, Rodrigo A. & Sepúlveda, Ignacio A. & Figueroa, Dante M., 2021. "A mixed-integer programming methodology to design tidal current farms integrating both cost and benefits: A case study in the Chacao Channel, Chile," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    18. Jim Kuo & Kevin Pan & Ni Li & He Shen, 2020. "Wind Farm Yaw Optimization via Random Search Algorithm," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-15, February.
    19. Lo Brutto, Ottavio A. & Thiébot, Jérôme & Guillou, Sylvain S. & Gualous, Hamid, 2016. "A semi-analytic method to optimize tidal farm layouts – Application to the Alderney Race (Raz Blanchard), France," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1168-1180.
    20. Brzezińska-Rawa, Anna & Goździewicz-Biechońska, Justyna, 2014. "Recent developments in the wind energy sector in Poland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 79-87.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:90:y:2016:i:c:p:469-480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.