Wind Power, Costs, O&Mand the

Renewable RevolutionHusum, Germany

18 September 2012

Michael Taylormtaylor@irena.org

IRENA Innovation and Technology Centre

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IRENA Membership

Status 10. April, 2012

IRENA’s 101 Members and 159 Signatories

KEY FINDINGSOF IRENA’S COSTINGANALYSIS

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Key findings

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• A renewable revolution is under way

• Dramatic cost reductions for Solar PV, onshore wind

competitive at best sites, CSP has great potential,

hydropower and biomass more mature

• Renewable now THE economic solution for electrification

and often grid extension, increasingly competitive for grid

supply.

• Emerging market manufacturers driving down prices

• Data collection poses challenges

Framework forBiomass, CSP, Hydro, PV & Wind

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Where to set the boundaries?

Are costs even available? Prices, or price indicators?

Levelised cost of electricity (LCOE)

Levelised cost of electricity

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The impact of low-cost manufacturers: PV modules

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Regional variationscan be large: Wind turbines

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WIND POWER

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US wind turbine prices1996 to 2012

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Capacity factors rising

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Average installed costs foronshore wind

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O&M costs

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US O&M costs by start year

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O&M share in LCOE

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Emerging issues for O&M?

• Operation and maintenance cost can account for a

substantial share of LCOE

• Why such wide ranges?

• Can all markets move to best practice?

• Cost reduction potential less well understood?

• Reasons for differences in bottom-up engineering cost

estimates and real world project costs not well understood

• O&M issues deserves more attention

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FUTURE WORKAND CONCLUSIONS

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Future work: Analysis and data collection

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• Costing work is vital for support of renewables

• Cost data should have same status as basic statistics!

• Work with companies, industry associations, etc. on data

collection and comparability

• Look at emerging issues, O&M, BoS costs, engineering vs. Real

world project costs, etc.

• Develop web-based tool to allow upload of data, provide

benchmarking details for participants

Wind is beginning to deliver on its large potential, but more needs to be done…

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