The Trends of Wind Power Installation Costs

The Trends of Wind Power Installation Costs 

The installation cost of a wind turbine includes a wind turbine purchase, construction work, grid connection, planning, and land use expenses (IRENA 2018). The cost of wind power is forecasted to decline in 2030 compared to 2015 (Williams et al. 2017).

Wind turbine design innovations and the variety of wind turbine offers by manufacturers are the current trends that drive wind power cost reductions.

The weighted average costs for wind power installations have declined globally by 70 % between 1983 and 2017 from USD 4880/kW to USD 1477/kW (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Total installed cost of onshore wind power projects and global weighted average costs, 1989-2017

Source Figure 1:  IRENA Renewable Cost Database, cited in IRENA 2018: p.94.

References

IRENA, 2018. Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2017, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.

Williams, R., Williams, E., Hittinger, E. & Carvalho, R. 2017. Wind power costs expected to decrease due to technological progress. Energy Policy, 106, pp.427–435.