This paper presents an innovative approach to decentralized data management in the German energy market, focusing on the use of decentralized data management with the help of Data Spaces to ...facilitate the automated change of energy suppliers within 24 h. The central focus of this research is the MakoMaker Space, a demonstrator project that employs the Connector from the Eclipse Data Space Components. The MakoMaker project demonstrates the successful automation of energy supplier changes, emphasizing the preservation of customer data sovereignty. It shows an alternative approach to the process, putting the customer into the center. Customers retain control of their data, which is accessible to providers as needed. While the paper discusses the potential for further enhancements, such as the integration of an identity provider and the development of a sustainable business model for service coordination, the primary focus is on the demonstrator’s successful application in a pilot setting.
The usage of machine learning techniques is widely spread and has also been implemented in the wind industry in the last years. Many of these techniques have shown great success but need to ...constantly prove the expectation of functionality. This paper describes a new method to monitor the health of a wind turbine using an undercomplete autoencoder. To evaluate the health monitoring quality of the autoencoder, the number of anomalies before an event has happened are to be considered. The results show that around 35% of all historical events that have resulted into a failure show many anomalies. Furthermore, the wind turbine subsystems which are subject to good detectability are the rotor system and the control system. If only one third of the service duties can be planned in advance, and thereby the scheduling time can be reduced, huge cost saving potentials can be seen.
Renewable energy auctions have been lauded for bringing about price reductions. However, the methods applied in investigating such impacts have so far been inadequate and often do not allow ...conclusions to be drawn as to whether observed price reductions were caused by auctions or by other factors. We have analysed the outcomes of the first onshore wind auctions in Germany held in 2017 and 2018, taking into account the site-specific wind conditions and realisation deadlines of the successfully bid projects. Our results show that after a temporary reduction, prices exceeded both the initial levels and the transitional feed-in tariff. A lack of public acceptance and numerous legal complaints against building permissions have contributed to bids falling below auction volumes in 2018. These results are discussed against the backdrop of the functional and structural promises associated with the introduction of auctions, including reduced remuneration levels, better control of the pace of the capacity expansion and who is able to influence the setting of the remuneration levels.
•Cost impacts of renewable energy auctions lack systematic empirical investigation.•Study analyses first two years of onshore wind auctions in Germany.•Project-specific wind conditions and implementation deadlines taken into account.•After a temporary reduction, prices exceeded both initial levels and the parallel FIT.•Results are discussed in the context of expectations prior to the policy change.
•International trend is for larger, taller wind turbines with lower specific powers.•Capital costs fell by 10% to 1,422€/MW over the period.•Reduction of 33% in levelised cost of energy to ...48€/MWh.•Specific power, finance and capital cost account for 45%, 25% and 17% of reduction.•Levelized cost of wind energy has fallen, but value has fallen proportionately more.
This paper presents work by the International Energy Agency’s Task 26 ‘Cost of Wind Energy’ on technological and cost trends in land-based wind energy in six participating countries (Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United States) and the European Union between 2008 and 2016. Results indicate that there is a general trend towards larger, taller machines with lower specific powers resulting in higher capacity factors, despite small falls in new site wind resources in most countries, while wind project capital costs and project finance costs also fell. This resulted in an average levelized cost of energy (LCOE) fall of 33% for new projects to 48€/MWh at the end of the study period. Analysis of the components of levelized cost change indicated that changes in specific power, financing cost and capital cost accounted for 45%, 25% and 17% respectively of the estimated reduction. It is therefore important that trends in technological factors such as specific power are considered when assessing wind energy learning rates, rather than just capital costs, which has been the primary focus heretofore. While LCOEs have fallen, the value of wind energy has fallen proportionately more, meaning grid parity appears no closer than at the beginning of the study. Policymakers must therefore consider both the cost and value of wind energy, and understand the volatility of this gap when designing land-based wind energy policy measures.
The detection of abnormal operation modes is of fundamental importance for both operational management and predictive maintenance of wind turbines. Anomaly detection approaches in this context should ...consider the additional information content that probabilistic models can provide. Instead of binary anomaly classification, the probabilistic information is necessary for proper decision making and risk assessment. Common models, such as quantile and distribution regression can provide probabilistic information. While they are appropriate in predicting the cumulative distribution function, they struggle to accurately describe the probability of an event to occur. In this article we present a new, multi-task learning based approach for a continuous distribution regression with deep neural networks. Using real-world data from an offshore wind turbine, we show that with this model we can better reflect the probability of observed events than with conventional methods. While the predicted cumulative distribution function has a similar quality and no significant differences are visible in the continuous ranked probability score, the probability density function will be substantially smoother. This is also reflected in a significantly lower ignorance score.
This paper presents work by the International Energy Agency’s Task 26 ‘Cost of Wind Energy’ on technological and cost trends in land-based wind energy in six participating countries (Denmark, ...Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United States) and the European Union between 2008 and 2016. Results indicate that there is a general trend towards larger, taller machines with lower specific powers resulting in higher capacity factors, despite small falls in new site wind resources in most countries, while wind project capital costs and project finance costs also fell. This resulted in an average levelized cost of energy (LCOE) fall of 33% for new projects to 48€/MWh at the end of the study period. Analysis of the components of levelized cost change indicated that changes in specific power, financing cost and capital cost accounted for 45%, 25% and 17% respectively of the estimated reduction. It is therefore important that trends in technological factors such as specific power are considered when assessing wind energy learning rates, rather than just capital costs, which has been the primary focus heretofore. Furthermore, while LCOEs have fallen, the value of wind energy has fallen proportionately more, meaning grid parity appears no closer than at the beginning of the study. Policymakers must therefore consider both the cost and value of wind energy, and understand the volatility of this gap when designing land-based wind energy policy measures.
Prices from the competitive procurement of renewable energy are increasingly used for the comparative evaluation of financial and technology performance. Comparing prices from auctions or ...power-purchase agreements at their face value is often not meaningful, particularly across jurisdictions or over time. Differences in support regimes and the market, tax, and regulatory environment can make a like-for-like comparison convoluted and result in misleading conclusions. Here, we estimate project revenue and value holistically for eight global offshore wind projects. Using a cash flow model, we consider applicable support regimes; market sales; and the monetized value of tax incentives, depreciation, and transmission. We find considerable variation in the absolute levels and relative composition of project revenue and value, which must be considered for deducting costs from procurement prices. The resulting metric enables decision makers and research to compare the total cost of procurement on an equal footing and supplements established cost metrics.
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•Interpreting renewable procurement prices at their face value can be misleading.•New method shows how renewable procurement prices can be compared like-for-like.•The level and composition of offshore wind revenue and value varies globally.•Support regimes remain essential even when direct subsidy payments decline.
Procurement prices are increasingly used to gauge the financial performance and costs of renewable energy projects. Comparing procurement prices from auctions or contracts at their face value alone is rarely adequate across different jurisdictions and time horizons. This often results in misleading conclusions. We employ a holistic approach to capture all relevant project revenue and value elements and apply it to eight global offshore wind projects. In a like-for-like comparison, we find significant variation in absolute levels and relative composition of project revenue and value streams. This confirms that our developed metric is useful to establish comparability. Our findings also emphasize the continued importance of support regimes, even when subsidy payments are nonexistent. With sufficient data available, our approach enables global like-for-like comparisons of renewable energy procurement prices and can inform and supplement established cost metrics.
Prices from the competitive procurement of renewables are increasingly used for the comparative evaluation of financial and technology performance. We introduce a method that allows for like-for-like comparisons of procurement prices across jurisdictions, over time, and to established cost metrics. In an application to global offshore wind projects, we find that revenue varies greatly, both in absolute terms and composition. Our findings emphasize the continued importance of support regimes, even when direct subsidy payments decline.
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