Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
price of raw materials, and consequently of turbines. But this is all conjecture that
may or may not be con
rmed by future developments.
The technology of small sized turbines has only recently received any signi
cant
attention. 2 These turbines are frequently of the parallel rotating axis type, since they
t more easily into buildings and other small residential, commercial and industrial
installations. They are a by-product of cost decreases in PV, which have opened up
a new model for the process of generation/consumption of electricity: the distrib-
uted generation model. The small to medium consumer also becomes a producer,
and small-scale wind technology becomes a natural complement to PV in this new
model of electricity generation, distribution and consumption. Since they are at a
very early stage of deployment, costs and prices are high compared to other wind
and renewable technologies, but the turbines are obviously of the onshore type,
which implies that their manufacturing process might bene
t from all the advances
already realised in the
eld of larger turbines.
A look at current costs and prices is in order at this point (see Tables 1 and 2 ). In
future developments, costs may be expected to come down slightly, as with any
other mature technology. Deployment will continue, and may take place at higher
absolute rates, but it is likely that the fastest-growing renewable technologies will
be solar, i.e. PV and CSP with TES, partly because they are less mature and partly
because the prospects for cost decreases are signi
cant. In Europe and other OECD
countries, this growth may concentrate on offshore platforms in the North Sea, and
mini-wind power to support PV deployment in the new model of distributed
generation and consumption. This is also due to the fact that the best onshore sites
are already taken. This new model (distributed generation and consumption of
energy based mainly on PV and mini-wind power systems) is gathering support in
many other parts of the world, but it must be pointed out that it is strongly opposed
by traditional utilities, and to some extent also by governments. The
nal success
and deployment of this technology thus hinges crucially on the result of that
confrontation. In emerging and other non OECD economies with lower installed
capacities, onshore developments will probably continue for a long while.
Competitiveness and grid parity, de
ned in one way or another, have already
been achieved in a few cases and may be expected gradually to become the norm
across technologies and countries. Moreover, and as noted for other renewables, as
the share of production accounted for by renewables increases they will have to be
looked at jointly, since synergies can be quite strong and can contribute signi
-
cantly to ensuring security of supply, energy independence, network stability and
cost competitiveness.
Summing up, wind power generation is a more mature technology than solar
power. Any expected cost reductions are therefore likely to be modest, and costs
might even increase, since turbine costs are highly dependent on the price of raw
material inputs (mainly copper, steel, and cement). Offshore costs are considerably
2
' Small turbines ' may mean turbines ranging in size from a few watts up to 100 kW or more, but
there is no universally accepted de nition.
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