ReportLinker has added a new report, named “The Future Cost of Wind Power : Capital costs, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), economics, costs and future outlook for wind power generation”, to its offering.
The report covers future cost of wind power generation and technology types that will be used, as well as its cost and viability.
Wind power is capital intensive with most of the investment required upfront. The largest capital cost component is the turbine itself which can account for between 40% and 80% of the total capital cost of an onshore wind installation, the report’s summary reads.
Costs offshore are higher because of the more expensive operating environment and the greater difficulty establishing a foundation so the proportion of capital cost taken by the turbine is generally lower than onshore.
Technological advances and greater overall efficiency are continuing to bring costs down. This is feeding into capital cost trends which are following turbine prices by falling. There are regional variations in capital costs, with costs lower in India and China than in Europe or the USA but regional differences are narrowing as the market becomes more global. With capital cost the dominant component of the cost of energy, the levelized cost of electricity from wind plants is falling too and onshore wind is beginning to compete with other technologies, particularly new coal.
There is a growing consensus that onshore wind will reach parity in many parts of the world by the end of the decade, if not before. Offshore wind will take longer but could be competing with the main conventional sources of power by the middle or end of the third decade of the century.
By the end of the decade wind power could be the second cheapest source of electricity after natural gas in many markets.
Image: Forewind (Illustration)