Impact of Technological Development on the Costs of Offshore Wind

Abstract

The importance of offshore wind power as a renewable energy source is expected to grow as the demand for electricity increases. The challenge for offshore wind has been the high energy costs but during the last five years the prices have come down significantly. One main driver which has potential to reduce the costs is the technological development. The aim of this study was to estimate how much the technological development has potential to further impact the costs of offshore wind. Both the impact of having bigger turbines available in the future and other technological improvements were considered. Other factors impacting the energy cost were not considered. The study was conducted by comparing the LCOE of four different turbine model scenarios, one contemporary and three future models, in four different case studies. The total wind farm capacity was kept constant for all scenarios which allowed the comparison between them. The results show that the overall costs of offshore wind energy can be reduced significantly when using bigger turbine units and other technological improvements are introduced. Although the Capex is typically the main part of the LCC, the results show that the main drivers for the decreasing costs are the considerable cost reduction potential of the Opex and a significant increase in the AEP from the same total capacity. The growing rotor sizes in relation to the power capacity is an important factor which increases the production. The Capex is only expected to decrease by significant amounts if the wind farm’s location is of a challenging nature. Because the relative turbine prices are expected to increase for future models, the Capex will in most cases decrease only slightly. If the share of the turbines within the Capex is very high, the Capex could increase.