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Recently a review of the U.S. wind energy industry was carried out and the Wind Energy Operations and Maintenance Report was published. A podcast on Wind Energy Update’s head of research, Pamela Muckosy, interviewing Peter Asmus, the lead author of the report can be found here. The full report can be bought here.
Recently a review of the U.S. wind energy industry was carried out and the Wind Energy Operations and Maintenance Report was published. A podcast on Wind Energy Update’s head of research, Pamela Muckosy, interviewing Peter Asmus, the lead author of the report can be found here. The full report can be bought here.I have not read the full report yet, but it looks like there is a good business case for PHM in wind energy, at least for gearboxes. Here are a few of the primary data findings quoted from the summary of this report:
- 79% of wind turbines are still under warranty. This is about to change.
- O&M costs for wind power are double or triple the figures originally projected, they are particularly high in the U.S. – which is now the world’s largest wind power market.
- Europe has a 2% to 5% advantage over the U.S. if resource factors are accounted for.
- There’s a -21% change in wind farm return on investment. This underperformance of wind assets is most likely attributable to both differences in power production and O&M costs over original estimates.
- $0.027/kWh or €0.019/kWh is the average values of O&M costs obtained from report surveys. This compares to early estimates by one of the world’s dominant turbine suppliers of $0.005/kWh.
- A significant amount of R&D is currently going into gearbox reliability. Many gearboxes, designed for a 20-year life, are failing after 6 to 8 years of operation.
Data suggests that O&M challenges for wind turbines peaked in 2007/2008.- At 2 cents/kWh, O&M costs are roughly equal to the federal production tax credit offered in the U.S. as a subsidy to make wind energy competitive.
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