Measuring the internationalization of the wind energy industry

Wind energy has grown from less than 20 gigawatts (GW) in 2000 to 590 GW by the end of 2018 and already provides 6% of the electricity consumed in the world. During this period, the wind energy technology industry has evolved from a local to a global business. To illustrate the globalization of this sector, this research assesses the effectiveness of the firms’ international strategies based on empirical indicators. The intensity, the speed of internationalization, the geographic extensity and diversification are calculated and analyzed. The results indicate that the most successful firms are the market leaders Vestas and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, and they are characterized by leading in both the depth (sales abroad/total sales) and width (number of countries) of internationalization as well as in geographic diversification. These companies are closely followed by four European and American firms: Enercon, Nordex, General Electric and Senvion. To date, Chinese firms, leaders in the largest market (China), are in general unable to internationalize as effectively as firms from other constituencies. Our results reveal that strong rivalry pressure in the domestic market is not a guarantee for the international competitiveness of its best-performing firms in the case of the wind energy industry – unless there are special characteristics in that domestic market

GIS-based assessment of the European potential for pumped hydropower energy storage

Este artículo presenta los resultados de la evaluación del potencial almacenamiento de energía hidráulica por bombeo en Europa bajo determinadas topologías y escenarios. Los resultados muestran que el potencial teórico en Europa es significativo. Se estudiaron dos topologías diferentes. Bajo la topología 1, la energía potencial teórica almacenado alcanza 54 TWh para una distancia de 20 km entre dos embalses existentes; de este potencial de aproximadamente 11 TWh corresponden a la UE y 37 TWh a otros países europeos. Bajo topología 2, el potencial teórico europeo alcanza 123 TWh cuando la distancia entre el embalse existente y la nueva localización propuesta es de hasta 20 km. A diferencia de la topología 1, en la topología 2 la mitad este potencial se establece dentro de la UE. El potencial realizable tiene en cuenta centros de población, espacios naturales protegidos e infraestructuras de transporte para la eliminación de nuevos embalses situados demasiado cerca. Para la Topología 1 y escenario 20 kilómetros el potencial realizable se reduce a la mitad, 29 TWh; mientras que la topología 2 está ligeramente menos afectada y finalmente alcanza 80 TWh de los que 33 TWh pertenecen a la UE

Offshore wind installation: Analysing the evidence behind improvements in installation time

The most important single event of the last years in wind energy technology is the reduction in the cost of producing wind electricity offshore, a reduction that can reach 75%, depending on the system boundary considered, for installations commissioned by 2024. Surprisingly, there is very little scientific literature showing how this reduction is being achieved. The objective of this paper is to analyse the evidence behind cost reduction in one of the most significant cost elements of offshore wind farms, the installation of foundations and turbines. This cost is directly dependent on the daily rates of the installation vessels and on the days it takes to install those wind farm elements. Therefore, we collected installation data from 87 wind farms installed from 2000 to 2017, to establish the exact time for installation in each. The results show that advances have reached 70% reduction in installation times throughout the period for the whole set, turbine plus foundation. Most of these improvements (and the corresponding impact in reducing costs) relate to the larger size of turbines installed nowadays. There is, therefore, not any leap forward in the installation process, but only incremental improvements applied to turbines that are now four times as large as in 2000

Techno-economics aspects of wind energy deployment.

La necesaria investigación sobre reducción de costes de la tecnología de producción de electricidad a partir del recurso eólico debe partir de los elementos que más impactan la formación del precio de esa energía. Por ello, el objetivo de este estudio doctoral es explorar e investigar algunos de los aspectos tecno-económicos que más influyen en el desarrollo y la comercialización de la energía eólica, y evaluar su impacto en la misma tecnología.Mi trabajo sigue dos líneas principales, una tecnológica y otra sobre la comercialización global. La primera incluye un análisis de la reducción de tiempo en la instalación de plantas eólicas en el mar, y otro sobre los efectos tecnológicos de la repotenciación de parques eólicos en tierra. La línea sobre comercialización se centra en el análisis de la globalización del sector y en particular de sus dos principales actores, los promotores de parques eólicos y los fabricantes de turbinas, para terminar explorando en profundidad cómo se internacionalizaron estos últimos.Esta investigación se ha basado en datos públicos o proporcionados por entidades que los comercializan, y de una pequeña cantidad de datos comunicados privadamente al autor por su red de contactos en el sector. Diversos modelos han sido usados dependiendo de la necesidad de cada investigación individual. La investigación sobre tiempo de instalación en el mar se modeló con macros de Visual Basic (VB) en MS Excel aplicados a los diferentes hitos de la instalación, de esta forma descubriendo la reducción en tiempo de instalación lograda en el periodo 2000-2017. La investigación sobre el impacto tecnológico de la repotenciación de turbinas eólicas se modeló con VB, Excel y el software de análisis de regresión estadística Minitab. La investigación sobre globalización se basó en contrastar series de datos de forma innovativa, extrayendo conclusiones y descubriendo tendencias que no se habían publicado hasta entonces. Finalmente, el análisis de internacionalización de los fabricantes de turbinas utilizó indicadores ampliamente utilizados en la literatura sobre internacionalización pero que tuvieron que ser adaptados a las particularidades del sector - por ejemplo, el uso de capacidad instalada en lugar de volumen de ventas.Las recientes subastas y licitaciones de electricidad eólica y/o renovable han revelado reducciones de costes muy significativas que se justifican en parte por la reducción en el tiempo de instalación (en el mar) y por el aumento de la producción eléctrica en el caso de la repotenciación (en tierra). Con respecto a comercio internacional y la globalización, esta investigación mostró que los fabricantes europeos de turbinas lideran el mercado global a la vez que están más diversificados y protegidos contra los vaivenes de los diferentes mercados. Es más, han sido capaces de formar cadenas de suministro en muchos países a la vez que mantenían la mayor parte del empleo en Europa.Research supporting cost reduction in wind energy technology benefits from the study of certain elements with strong impact on the formation of the cost of energy. In this context, the objective of this doctoral research is to explore some of the techno-economic aspects influencing wind energy development and deployment and to assess their impact on the technology. The research follows two strings of work: a technology and a deployment string. The former included an analysis of time reduction in the installation of wind farms offshore and another on the technological effects of repowering wind farms onshore. The later focused on globalisation of the sector with a focus on wind farm developers and turbine manufacturers, and then more specifically on the process of internationalisation of the latter. The research collected data from public and commercial sources, and a small amount of confidential data was used that originated from the network of contacts of the author. Varied modelling tools were applied depending on the needs of each of the four individual pieces of research. The article exploring the reduction of the installation time in offshore wind farms used Visual Basic (VB) macros in MS Excel applied to the key milestones of project installation in order to unveil to what extent time reduction had been realised during the period 2000-2017. In the article on the technological impact of repowering, Excel, VB models and statistical regression analysis with Minitab were used in turn. The article on globalisation focused on contrasting data publicly available but not normally investigated together thus unveiling trends not seen previously. Finally, the analysis of internationalisation of wind turbine manufacturers resourced to indicators that, while widely used in the literature, needed to be adapted to the wind turbine manufacture sector. The very significant cost reductions in electricity from wind energy that have surfaced following recent auctions and tenders is justified in part by (offshore) the reduction in the time of installation and (onshore) the increased production from repowering. Regarding trade and globalisation, the research found that European wind turbine manufacturers lead globally while they are more diversified and protected against the ups and downs of the different markets. Moreover, they have been able to grow supply chains in many countries while still maintaining the bulk of the employment at home.<br /

Land-Based Wind Energy Cost Trends in Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and the UnitedStates

This paper presents work by the International Energy Agency’s Task 26 ‘Cost of Wind Energy’ on technological and cost trends in land-based wind energy in six participating countries (Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United States) and the European Union between 2008 and 2016. Results indicate that there is a general trend towards larger, taller machines with lower specific powers resulting in higher capacity factors, despite small falls in new site wind resources in most countries, while wind project capital costs and project finance costs also fell. This resulted in an average levelized cost of energy (LCOE) fall of 33% for new projects to 48€/MWh at the end of the study period. Analysis of the components of levelized cost change indicated that changes in specific power, financing cost and capital cost accounted for 45%, 25% and 17% respectively of the estimated reduction. It is therefore important that trends in technological factors such as specific power are considered when assessing wind energy learning rates, rather than just capital costs, which has been the primary focus heretofore. While LCOEs have fallen, the value of wind energy has fallen proportionately more, meaning grid parity appears no closer than at the beginning of the study. Policymakers must therefore consider both the cost and value of wind energy, and understand the volatility of this gap when designing land-based wind energy policy measures

The use of satellite products to assess spatial uncertainty and reduce life-time costs of offshore wind farms

Managers of offshore wind farms make strategic decisions based on information about site wind speeds and significant wave heights (SWH) available from numerical weather predictions (NWP) or local in-situ measurements. However, the coarse resolution with which such information are available, both in space and time, introduces a high degree of uncertainty into the decision process which in turn may result in higher costs during different stages of offshore wind farm life. The current work investigates how space-borne data describing wind speeds and SWH might be used to quantify spatial uncertainties and support decisions during the design and operation of offshore wind sites. Results have revealed that due to high spatial variance of wind speed, the estimated wind power can differ from that provided by an offshore met mast up to 11%. The methodology proposed for SWH has shown how data collected from distinct satellites can be efficiently interpolated (maximum absolute error observed around 1 m) to generate high-resolute spatial information of sea water surface, regardless of satellite trajectory distributions. The work has provided insights on how the propagation of measurement uncertainty through the wind farm area can affect both management costs and wind energy production over the plant life-cycle