Economic and sensitivity analysis on wind farm end-of-life strategies

Gustavo de Novaes Pires Leite, Franciele Weschenfelder, João Gabriel de Farias and Muhammad Kamal Ahmad

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2022, vol. 160, issue C

Abstract: Wind energy is a renewable energy source gaining significant attention lately, with the first wind farms nearing the end of their operational lives. With increasing installed capacity, a large number of wind farms will have to make critical end-of-life decisions in the coming years. Repowering and lifetime extension are two end-of-life strategies considered in this study. Technical and economic analyses were conducted for a wind farm in Brazil, a country with a prominent wind energy sector. A mathematical model was implemented to evaluate the economic benefits of each alternative, considering conditional and functional aspects, and was compared against a decommissioned wind farm, which represents the base case scenario. For the lifetime extension, three cases are considered: a light, medium, and substantial overhaul, which affects not only the generation but also the capital and operational expenditures of an overhauled wind turbine. A global sensitivity model is used to determine the most sensitive parameters affecting the economic results and to extend the cash flow analysis. The output reveals the economic viability of both strategies and their most critical variables, namely the energy tariff, capacity factor, and capital and operational expenditures. In addition, repowering exhibits improved feasibility in terms of economic indicators and undesirable results for the critical variables; therefore, lifetime extension becomes a low-risk alternative because of its highly stable effects, even though it has less number of positive economic indexes.

Keywords: Wind turbine; Repowering; Lifetime extension; Decommissioning; Sensitivity analysis; Cashflow analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112273

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