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    • Replacement of existing wind turbines

    By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2008-07-30 17:33
    Date: 
    Friday, October 10, 2008 - 15:00
    Duration / timezone: 

    1 hour / Central European Time (Brussels, Paris, Berlin)

    Moderators: 

    Walter Hulshorst, Fernando Nuno

    Content: 

    In countries that started early with wind energy (Germany and Denmark), old wind turbines are often placed at locations where the wind is very good. Since the best locations for wind in these countries are occupied by old wind turbines with lower energy outputs compared with new wind turbines, programmes were started to replace the old turbines (5 up to 15 years old) with modern ones. With repowering, first-generation wind turbines can be replaced with modern multi-megawatt wind turbines.

    The first-generation wind turbines can then be used in developing countries. Growing energy demand in developing countries stimulates the use of renewable energy sources, such as wind power, to provide a sustainable and environmentally-friendly power supply. For most of these countries, projects with new wind turbines have proven to be unaffordable: that is why using these lower-cost turbines may be an option.

    This webinar summarises results of repowering programmes and used wind turbine projects.

    View recording (45 minutes):

    View presentation: 
    Repowering and Used Wind Turbined
    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: electricity wind)

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    reader question

    By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Thu, 2008-10-09 9:31

    During the planning and building of a wind farm, two of the most difficult issues are

    1. obtaining planning permission and
    2. arranging grid connection.
    When modifying a farm, especially when the height of the turbines is increased, revised planning permission will be needed and a higher connection capacity will be required. What is your experience on these issues so far?

    Reply

    other questions received during the repowering webinar

    By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Sat, 2008-10-11 13:09
    1. What are various avenues or established channels for disposal of used turbines?
    2. Do manufacturers accept improving nacelle cooling for second hand turbines or do we have to choose the ones which fits to the same climatic conditions?
    3. Which are the primary companies that buy and sell used wind turbines? Are there any in the U.S.?
      • For Europe, see the companies listed here.
      • For USA, see for instance AeronauticaWind.com
    4. In case of buying used windturbines, which aspects (phisical parts, manufacturer, ...) would you check first?
    5. Any thoughts on price suppression including on the new side of turbine supply inc price suppression from china etc and also the credit crisis suppression on wind projects. What will this do to the refurbished market?
    6. Where can we get information about maintenance for second hand turbines?
    7. Has any co in India replaced for ahigher capacity wind Turbines and how much time it will take to replace
    8. Is there any enterprise in Europe that have a register of available used equipments to build projects in Latin America or the rest of the world?
    9. Is it feasible to retool American auto/truck manufacturers for wind turbine? And what would the timeframe for conversion be?
    10. Wind turbine costs went up lately in u$s/kW. Because many new factories are producing wind turbines, eventually this will push down those prices. What do you think? and how will this affect the used wind turbines market?
    11. Can you specify advantage and disadvantage of using stal and pitch controlled second hand wind turbines and speed controlled and two speed turbines.

    Reply

    answers to selected questions

    By Walter Hulshorst / Published on Wed, 2008-10-22 11:38
    1. Because the wind energy market is relatively young, there is only limited amount of practical expierence on the removal of wind turbines. While repowering programms are starting nowadays, the aging wind turbines can be used for new developing markets were wind energy projects just started. In case the wind turbine can not be used for the used market or as a spare part, dismantling of the windturbine is necessary. A study performed by Vestas (Vestas, 2005, Life cycle assessment of offshore and onshore sited wind power plants based on Vestas V90-3.0 MW turbines) shows that about 90% of the iron and copper used can be recycled and the remaining 10% is land filled. 100% of the glass fibre and plastics are incinerated.
    2. Manufacturers of wind turbines have designed the wind turbine for the location were the wind turbine is used. In case you want to replace the wind turbine to an other location with higher ambient temperature the cooling should be an point of attention. Either you can upgrade your cooling to have similar output (MVA) or you accept less output at higher temperatures. In case you want to upgrade the cooling you can expect that the manufacturer will not take liability, since the orginal design of the wind turbine was at a location with a lower ambient temperature.
    3. -
    4. Page 24 of the report “Repowering and Used Wind Turbines” gives several aspects which has to be checked.
    5. We don’t have a chrystal ball, but the wind turbine market is still growing fast over the couple of years. China and India already have their own manufacturers of windturbines. The impact of the credit crises is hard to predict on the repowering market.
    6. Information of maintenance of second hand turbines can either be asked by manufacturers of the windturbine of some companies specialised in used wind turbines as listed by question 3.
    7. Although I’m not an expert on the Indian market, it can be expected that repowering programs are rare in India since just recently the wind turbines market in India started.
    8. -
    9. -
    10. Nowadays we have about 100 GW windenergy worldwide. Merril lynch expects that it will be about 200 GW in 2011, with an installed power of 108 GW in Europe and 47 GW in North America and 37 GW. The rest of the world will be about 11 GW. The main challenge for wind turbine manufacturers and their suppliers is to cope with the growth in demand for windturbines. The main bottlenecks have been in the supply of gear boxes and large bearings. As in the manufacture of wind turbines, there have been few new entrants to this market as, historically, the technology risks have been perceived as high. In addition, turbine manufacturers try to avoid using those new suppliers who can demonstrate only limited industry experience, or who do not have established track records. Based on the expected double digit growth in the wind turbines market and the relatively small list of companies that supplies gear boxes, it can be expected that the costs of wind turbines will not be lower.
    11. -

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    Repowering in Belgium

    By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2008-10-28 13:00

    During the seminar 'Strategic purchasing of green energy or producing in-house?' of the KVIV TI in Brussels two weeks ago, Alex Polfliet of Siemat Energy talked about the repowering of wind turbines in Belgium. He regretted that the Belgian regions have no regulatory framework in place for granting extra incentives to repowering projects, in contrast to countries like Germany and Spain. According to his figures, a repowering of all wind turbines in Belgium to 2 MW would double the wind capacity in this country.

    Reply

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