1. Wind Power, Costs, O&M
and the
Renewable Revolution
Husum, Germany
18 September 2012
Michael Taylor
mtaylor@irena.org
IRENA Innovation and Technology Centre

2. IRENA Membership
IRENA’s 101 Members and 159 Signatories
Status 10. April, 2012 2

3. KEY FINDINGS
OF IRENA’S COSTING
ANALYSIS
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4. Key findings
• A renewable revolution is under way
• Dramatic cost reductions for Solar PV, onshore wind
competitive at best sites, CSP has great potential,
hydropower and biomass more mature
• Renewable now THE economic solution for electrification
and often grid extension, increasingly competitive for grid
supply.
• Emerging market manufacturers driving down prices
• Data collection poses challenges
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5. Framework for
Biomass, CSP, Hydro, PV & Wind
Where to set the boundaries?
Are costs even available? Prices, or price indicators?
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Levelised cost of electricity (LCOE)

6. Levelised cost of electricity
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7. The impact of low-cost
manufacturers: PV modules
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8. Regional variations
can be large: Wind turbines
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9. WIND POWER
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10. US wind turbine prices
1996 to 2012
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11. Capacity factors rising
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12. Average installed costs for
onshore wind
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13. O&M costs
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14. US O&M costs by start year
Source: LBNL, 2012
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15. O&M share in LCOE
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16. Emerging issues for O&M?
• Operation and maintenance cost can account for a
substantial share of LCOE
• Why such wide ranges?
• Can all markets move to best practice?
• Cost reduction potential less well understood?
• Reasons for differences in bottom-up engineering cost
estimates and real world project costs not well understood
• O&M issues deserves more attention
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17. FUTURE WORK
AND
CONCLUSIONS
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18. Future work: Analysis
and data collection
• Costing work is vital for support of renewables
• Cost data should have same status as basic statistics!
• Work with companies, industry associations, etc. on data
collection and comparability
• Look at emerging issues, O&M, BoS costs, engineering vs. Real
world project costs, etc.
• Develop web-based tool to allow upload of data, provide
benchmarking details for participants
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19. Wind is beginning to deliver on its large
potential, but more needs to be done…
IRENA is part of the solution
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