Title :
Energy fuel saving benefit of a wind turbine
Author :
Malik, A.S. ; Awsanjli, A.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Sultan Qaboos Univ., Al-Khod, Oman
Abstract :
The paper presents a study carried out to investigate the economics of wind turbine as an energy fuel saver. The load and the wind data is taken from a remote agricultural research station in Oman. The station is provided electricity with diesel-engine generating units. The annual peak load and minimum load recorded at the site is 130 kW and 28 kW respectively. The annual average wind speed at the site is 5.7 m/s. A 50 kW wind turbine is selected to demonstrate the economic feasibility of the turbine as a fuel saver. The results show that wind energy utilization is an attractive option with total specific cost of the selected wind turbine at 9.3 c/kWh at 10% discount rate comparing to diesel generation operating cost of 10.3 c/kWh, considering the capital cost of diesel units as sunk. The simple payback period of the turbine is 8.5 years.
Keywords :
cost-benefit analysis; diesel engines; energy conservation; power utilisation; wind turbines; 130 kW; 28 kW; 5.7 m/s; 50 kW; Oman; capital cost reduction; diesel generation operating cost; diesel-engine generating units; economic feasibility; energy fuel saving; remote agricultural research station; wind energy utilization; wind speed; wind turbine; Agriculture; Cities and towns; Costs; Fuel economy; Power generation; Power generation economics; Wind energy; Wind energy generation; Wind speed; Wind turbines;
Conference_Titel :
Electrotechnical Conference, 2004. MELECON 2004. Proceedings of the 12th IEEE Mediterranean
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-8271-4
DOI :
10.1109/MELCON.2004.1348233
