Feasibility study of wind farms: A case study for Izmir, Turkey

Wind is one of the world's fastest growing renewable energy sources. The rapid growth in wind power is a result of improvements accomplished in technology. This paper presents the technical and economical feasibility of wind farms. The method is applied to a potential wind farm site located in Izmir, Turkey. The site is considered on technical and economical parameters for the complete plant and its running costs. For technical consideration wind speed, prevailing wind direction, and temperature measurements are performed. For economical consideration, three different scenarios namely, autoproducer, autoproducer group, and independent power producer (IPP) cases, are investigated and compared with respect to net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and pay back period (PBP) criteria. The study indicates the costs of generated energy by wind turbines with different characteristics as a function of the installed capacity. It is concluded that, the larger the installed capacity, the smaller the generating cost per kWh. The generating cost was calculated as low as 2.68 UScent/kWh for the IPP scenario. The profitability analysis also shows that, larger installed capacity with larger rated power wind turbines present higher IRR of the investment. The sensitivity analysis backs up the findings. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.