Managing Wind Turbine Generators with a Profit Maximized Approach
1
Alpiq AG, Chemin de Mornex 10, 1003 Lausanne, Switzerland
2
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL EMBA Program, Odyssea Building, Route Cantonale—Avenue Forel, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
3
School of Management and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD), Institute for Energy and Electrical Systems, 1401 Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 7139; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12177139
Received: 21 July 2020 / Revised: 18 August 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 / Published: 1 September 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Evaluation of Renewable Energy Sources)
In Europe, at least 3 GW installed capacity of wind turbine generators (WTG) will fall out of subsidy schemes every year from 2021 onwards. An estimated 50% of this capacity cannot be replaced with new WTG due to commercial and legal restrictions. The remaining options are either to sell the electricity without subsidies on the wholesale electricity market—a novelty for most WTG, as most are receiving a feed-in tariff—or their dismantlement. Since the electricity market fixes the price at the intersection of demand and short run marginal production costs, WTG might struggle to generate enough revenues to cover their costs. This paper proposes an innovative commercialization strategy for WTG after the end of the feed-in tariff, namely a profit-maximized approach that focuses on synergies between revenues and costs when increasing the curtailments of the WTG. The two key elements of this approach are a more flexible and variable cost structure and a central overall optimization process. The paper proves the potential of this new strategy and highlights the necessity of further research for WTG at the end of their lifetime from a technical and commercial perspective, due to the impact on the initial investment decision and best allocation of subsides.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
WTG profit maximization; remaining useful lifetime (RUL); WTG commercialization; curtailment of WTG
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
McInnis, D.; Capezzali, M. Managing Wind Turbine Generators with a Profit Maximized Approach. Sustainability 2020, 12, 7139. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12177139
AMA Style
McInnis D, Capezzali M. Managing Wind Turbine Generators with a Profit Maximized Approach. Sustainability. 2020; 12(17):7139. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12177139
Chicago/Turabian StyleMcInnis, Dominik, and Massimiliano Capezzali. 2020. "Managing Wind Turbine Generators with a Profit Maximized Approach" Sustainability 12, no. 17: 7139. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12177139
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
