Developing a method to analyse the electricity cost of wind power

In terms of costs of owning and operation, the wind power differs from conventional thermal power plant as the most of these costs are known in advance. Wind power is considered as capital-intensive technologies. Operation and maintenance costs of wind power are relatively low, when compared to thermal power plants, and of course the input fuel (wind energy) is free, meaning that fluctuating fuel costs have no impact on wind power generation costs. The objective of this paper is to present the results of a study conducted to identify and determine the cost components of electricity produced by a wind farm before the installation process. For estimation of wind power production cost, the characteristics of the site, where the wind farm is installed, and the power curve of wind turbine provided by manufacturer were used as well as the life cycle cost and time value of money were used. The study results show that the wind power production costs range from approximately 0.07-0.10 $/kWh at those sites with low average wind speeds, to approximately 0.05-0.07 $/kWh at windy coastal sites. This study focuses on the annualized life cycle cost and the production cost in $/kWh. This way of cost estimation allows us to make comparison between wind power-generated electricity cost and the electricity production cost of the other power generating technologies.