Tuesday, 27 September 2016
14:30 - 16:00 End-of-life issues and repowering
Market Developments  
          

Repowering is an important option in many markets, but operators need to investigate the economic case project by project, as conditions may vary considerably. Repowering has potential implications for short and medium EU renewable energy targets as it allows the further development of sites with good wind resources with more efficient turbines. As wind energy assets get older and are decommissioned, overall wind power production will decrease, affecting the share of electricity that the EU has committed to source from renewables by 2020 and 2030.

WindEurope is working on end-of-life issues and repowering, assessing the current situation, conducting surveys on national regulations and examining the economic case of the different options. This session will investigate repowering and life extension experiences across different EU countries, the business case for extending and repowering projects and the implications for EU energy policy.

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Learning objectives

Delegates will learn the answers to the following key questions:

• What conditions would help the business case for repowering and lifetime extension in Europe?
• What lessons to draw from experience?
• What are the implications for EU energy policy to 2030 and beyond?

 

Additional speakers to be confirmed soon.

This session will be chaired by:

Christian Jourdain Gamesa, Spain
Co-authors:
Christian Jourdain (1) ^F Sergio Velez (1)
(1) Gamesa, sarriguren, Spain

Life extension: from theory to reality for a Spanish wind farm

Introduction

Recent and future changes in incentive schemes in Europe are challenging all wind asset owners. One solution consists in extending the operational life of existing assets, as long as the safety of the public and employees can be guaranteed at a cost which is coherent to the absence of any incentive, retroactively or in the future.

Approach

To optimize the wind farm cash flows, Gamesa has been working for the last 4 years on a methodology combining different sources (mathematical model, Operational data, Site data such as orography and wind characteristics, usage of turbines, condition monitoring information, specific inspections, etc..) and computational improvements, that could give confidence to minimize corrective and the need for regular inspections. This methodology has been certified by DNV-GL in December 2014, opening the path to owners, banks, insurers and investment funds.

Main body of abstract

Many options are now available to owners, from inspections’ programs to generic mathematical simulations using big data technologies, which provide different level of confidence to investors, without giving a complete guarantee to owners.

Although Gamesa started to implement life extension upgrades in 660 kW platforms (G47 and V47) since 2013, it is only in 2016 and despite of current renewable regulations’ uncertainty, that a wind asset owner signed a turnkey wind farm life extension in Spain.


Conclusion

Many solutions are available and assets owners might get confused. Inspections, basic model, complete model? How to demonstrate to authorities, banks, insurance companies that my company is using a process that guarantee the safety of the public, employees and the assets? On the contrary, the failure of just one could deeply impact the entire stakeholders of our industry.


Learning objectives
In this presentation Gamesa will share the economic details of such a project. Explaining the different phases of the project, stressing the complexity of the decision process and the importance of the initial assessment to program the upgrades and the usefulness, or not, of a comprehensive full O&M service until year 30.