Modelling of wind power - A techno-economic analysis of wind turbine configurations

Abstract

Wind power production has increased by a hundredfold during the last twenty years and represents roughly 3 % of the total global electricity production. The recent years, technological changes in wind turbine configurations have enabled higher capacity factors for wind turbines. The aim of this work was to show the effects of different wind turbine configurations on the value of the produced electricity in current power systems, and on the role of wind power in scenarios of future power systems. Two case studies were conducted in order to analyse the characters of wind power with different perspectives on economy and time, in Denmark and Sweden. The case studies included three models: (i) a power curve model for simulation of wind power production profiles for different wind turbine configurations, (ii) a cost model for wind turbine investment costs, for different wind turbine configurations, and (iii) a power system model, which optimizes the investments and provides the most cost-efficient composition of the electricity production technologies. The results from the studies of the Danish and Swedish power systems show that wind turbines with lower specific power, than the traditional configurations, are more profitable and generates more value to the power systems even though they have higher levelized cost of electricity. The results shows that wind power can play a major role in future power systems with low carbon emissions. If designing the wind turbines with lower specific power than today, large wind power penetration levels of about 60 and 80 % could be cost-optimal under strict carbon emission regulations in Sweden and Denmark respectively, without interregional transmission lines or electricity storage possibilities.