Special report
Germany and Austria. There was also some activity in Belgium, Greece and the UK. However, out of the 14GW of onshore wind installed in 2021, only 515MW came from repowering projects. WindEurope is working to ensure those numbers increase moving forward, in part by driving effective communication and engagement with political and regulatory decision makers. At a broader level, the organisation seeks to facilitate national and international policies and initiatives that strengthen the development of European and global wind energy markets, infrastructure and technology. “We see capacity running that is already 30 years old, which definitely needs to be replaced soon. Most of our installed capacity today will reach the end of its operational life by 2050,” says Ivan Komusanac, electrification advisor at WindEurope. “We don’t want to lose sites that were commissioned 20 or 30 years ago. These sites often have the best wind conditions and they have reliably produced renewable electricity up until now.”
To repower or not to repower? That said, not every wind operation is suitable for repowering – each farm must be examined on a case- by-case basis. Stakeholders need to ask, essentially, does it make money at the end of the day? “When a turbine is 20 years old, operational costs are higher and you have to put much more into maintenance and spend more on parts,” Komusanac explains. “You need to look into the prices you can secure for electricity and see how much money you can get on the market versus how much you need to spend on the machine. If that equation works, operators will keep running the farms but if it’s close to zero, you have to think about redoing the whole thing.”
The availability of spare parts is another factor to consider, particularly with the recent consolidation in the market – some parts that were designed for
wind turbines built 25 years ago are no longer in production. “If there are spare parts available, you will do a cost estimate and see if your project makes financial sense or not. If you don’t have spare parts, you realise: ‘okay, I have to do repowering’,” Komusanac says.
Permitting problems It’s crucial to ask these questions early on, due to the complex permitting procedures around repowering. “You cannot do this overnight; you can’t wait until it stops working and then think about how to proceed,” Komusanac stresses. “You have to start planning at least five years ahead.”
Then, once the decision has been made to repower, operators must continue running their operations to maximise existing assets, at the same time as starting the really hard part – applying for a new permit.
14GW
Of onshore wind was installed in Europe in 2021.
WindEurope
“You have to go to your planning authorities and something might have changed in terms of urban requirements, or you might want to use a larger land area,” says Komusanac. “The problem we have right now is that you have to go through the same steps as if it were a new wind farm.” It is this part of the process that WindEurope is asking governments to streamline. At present, the organisation says, there are too many spatial planning constraints, too many administrative authorities involved at national, regional and municipal level. At the same time, permitting authorities lack sufficient digital and human resources to process the growing number of repowering applications.
World Wind Technology /
www.worldwind-technology.com
31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
