Finland catching-up in wind turbines

Finland lags behind the rest of the Nordics in terms of energy use from wind turbines. The country hopes to construct 200 new wind turbines by the end of this year, which would bring the country's total to over 700. Denmark already boasts more than 4,000 onshore and offshore turbines – while Sweden has more than 3,000.

Finland's Wind Power Association says there were 552 wind turbines in the country at the end of 2016. Estimates put the number of new generators scheduled to be built in 2017 at between 150 and 200.

This means Finland will soon boast a wind turbine fleet of over 700 turbines, with a combined capacity of approximately 2,000 to 2,200 MW, but even then, the country will still lag behind other Nordic countries in wind energy production.

Anni Mikkonen, executive director of the association says that even though Finland was one of the largest investors in wind power in Europe last year, Germany increased its capacity ten-fold during the same period.

The Swedish wind power firm OX2 has been building four wind turbines in western Kokkola, on the shoreline of the Bothnia Bay. They should be complete by the end of October. It usually takes another two weeks or so to hook the new turbines up to Finland's grid. 

One new turbine per week - if it's not windy

Project leader Pasi Tammivaara says that it takes about one week to erect a single turbine, if the winds cooperate. Building work has to be called off every time the winds get too strong, for safety reasons.

"The wind limits when we are building the steel tower is 10 metres per second. When we install the blades, this falls to 8.5 m/s. It is normal to have wind delays in this work, because most wind farms are located in areas with windy conditions," he says.

Work at the site ranges from periods of frantic activity to standstills due to windy conditions. If weather conditions permit, assembly work continues for up to 10 hours at a time.

Still contributing less than 5% energy

Once finished, the new wind farm in Kokkola will have a 14.4 MW capacity, with a projected annual production rate of 556 Wh. The finished hub height, the distance from the platform to the rotor (not including the turbine blades) is 134 metres.

Before the erection of the tower, extensive excavation on the site is necessary to shore up the foundation and build service roads, for example.

Kokkola's groundwater situation has made this site in particular more of a challenge, in that the surrounding terrain needed to be protected before the work could begin. It also required that the foundation for the soaring structure be partially enclosed above ground, as it couldn't be completely buried underground to protect the water supply.

Last year wind power accounted for 3.6 percent of Finland's total energy consumption.

Source: Yle News - Finland

Financial Innovation Set to Cut the Cost of Offshore Wind

FTI Consulting Releases First FTI Intelligence Report

LONDON, May 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN), the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organisations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced the release of an FTI Intelligence report, the first of a series of data-driven publications evaluating competitive markets, policy, finance, technology and business models across the energy spectrum.

The report, Innovative Financing of Offshore Wind, focuses on renewable energy and explores the significant potential for cutting the cost of energy from offshore wind power by reducing financial fees and interest charges, which represent an astonishing 28 percent of project life cycle expenditures. The report is authored by members of the FTI-CL Energy practice, a cross-practice team of energy experts from both FTI Consulting and its subsidiary, Compass Lexecon.

A cost-of-equity sensitivity analysis by FTI-CL Energy professionals demonstrates how small changes in financing variables have a major impact on offshore wind energy costs to the consumer. The levelised cost of energy ("LCOE") is extremely sensitive to changes in debt margin. This analysis found that an increase of 100 basis points results in an average 3.4 percent increase in LCOE.

"Offshore wind energy economics are strongly governed by life cycle financial costs, and the potential to reduce these is considerable," explained Aris Karcanias, Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Leader of the Company's FTI-CL Energy practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Although financial costs normally are not expressed in terms of their share of overall capital expenditures, identification of the size of the opportunity to reduce capital expenditures shows the importance of financial innovation in providing cheaper electricity from offshore wind."

The report also found that the entry of new investors and lenders to the renewable energy sector with innovative ideas for structuring both equity and debt is applying beneficial pressure to financial margins. "Respectable returns without exposure to risk" was a strong message from European wind industry and financial sector chief executive officers interviewed for this report.

"Corporate and institutional investors looking for low risk, long-term and predictable yield investments are signing on pension, insurance and sovereign wealth funds, to name a few," said Athanasia Arapogianni, Consultant and member of the Company's FTI-CL Energy practice. "Innovative financing and an increase in the number of players in offshore wind finance are creating more competition among lenders, which will lead to lower charges, fees and risk premiums on interest rates."

The report further discovers that offshore wind now rates as an infrastructure asset favourably comparable with airports and highways, qualifying it as a safe harbour for investment and unlocking money markets previously closed to the sector.

"New classes of investors and lenders now are competing for involvement in offshore wind farms during construction and even pre-construction — once considered risky compared with investments in an operational facility," said Mr. Karcanias. "The latest innovation under discussion is bond finance. Investors are well-acquainted with bonds as a financing instrument and are using them to transform offshore wind projects into easy-to-comprehend investment opportunities, which, in turn, will assist in attracting capital to the sector."

In addition to the influx of capital for offshore wind investments, utilities and other equity investors are exercising exit divestment strategies and are selling their interests in completed projects to release capital back into more offshore wind construction.

"Replacement of equity with debt is creating a secondary market in refinancing offshore wind projects," continued Mr. Karcanias. "A clear pattern is emerging of how offshore wind construction will be financed in the future. Capital recycling and the lower capital expenditure levels achieved through learning curve experience are benefits expected to contribute to decreasing annual capital requirements for construction."

The report includes an analysis of this trend and reveals that 46 percent of the required investment by 2020 will be met by recycled capital. Global capacity today is about seven Gigga Watts ("GW") and the report projects capacity reaching 52GW in 2020, driven by notable growth in northern Europe, and 112GW by 2025, as markets in Asia and America continue to grow.

To purchase the FTI Intelligence Innovative Financing of Offshore Wind report in its entirety, visit the FTI Intelligence website at www.fti-intelligence.com or contact Aris Karcanias at aris.karcanias@fticonsulting.com.

Vestas receives largest order ever in Finland for 99MW

Last 7th of March TuuliWatti Oy has placed a 99MW order with Vestas for two projects in Finland using V126-3.3 MW turbines and the new Large Diameter Steel Tower technology. The order consists of two projects utilising V126-3.3 MW turbines and featuring Vestas Large Diameter Steel Towers (LDST), which allows for taller hub heights and therefore greater annual energy production at low wind speeds.

The order comprises the 73 MW Kalajoki project, which will be the first large-scale wind power plant in Finland. Delivery of the turbines will begin in the fourth quarter of 2014 and the project is expected to be completed in Q3 2015.

Delivery of the 26 MW Siikainen project will begin in Q3 2014 and is expected to be completed in Q1 2015. Both projects include a Vestas Online Business SCADA system and a five-year Active Management Output (AOM) 5000 service agreement with options for two additional extensions of five years.

The two projects feature the V126-3.3 MW, which can produce up to 20% more power compared to the V112-3.0 MW on a site with average wind speeds of 6.5 m/s. The towers for the projects will be the recently launched Large Diameter Steel Towers, (LDST), a Vestas-patented concept that features a special wider diameter lower section of the tower, resulting in increased strength without adding extra steel. Therefore Vestas can provide higher towers to customers to optimise power generation at
low wind speed sites for the V117-3.3 MW and V126-3.3 MW.

Trends on clean energies for 2014

Trends for 2014

In the 2014 Clean Energy Trends Report, Clean Edge showcases five trends to watch for the coming year. For the first time, this year the authors looked at green building and electric and hybrid vehicles. Since 2000, these sectors have experienced compound annual growth rates of 68.9 percent and 38 percent respectively, according to Clean Edge.

The first trend to keep an eye on is in the utility sector.  Clean Edge believes that in 2014 we will start to see “enlightened utilities begin to embrace distributed generation assets.” As rooftop solar continues its steady march towards adoption, utilities will continue to grapple with how to maintain healthy businesses in the face of declining electricity sales. “Some forward-looking utilities, if not fully embracing a distributed energy future, are making investments, forming partnerships, and acknowledging that the threat of DG might also be a business opportunity,” the report states.  Clean Edge points to some examples of this that took place in 2013, such as Edison International’s purchase of SoCore Energy, a Chicago-based rooftop solar developer that does work in the commercial space. It also uses Duke Energy’s investment in Clean Power Finance as another example of utilities starting to think about profiting from distributed PV. 

This type of movement in the utility sector is taking place in Europe and Asia, too, said Clean Edge. German utility RWE is leading this transition by overhauling its entire business model while in Japan, a country that installed 7 GW of PV in 2013, consumers are seeking technological solutions to their energy woes in a post-Fukushima world. “The country already has some 30,000 homeowners who use fuel cells like Panasonic’s Ene-Farm to generate power on site,” said Clean Edge.

Energy storage is also mentioned as something to keep an eye on and the report said that consumer-sited battery technology is comparable to where PV was in the early 2000s with some early adopters already onboard.

This disruption in the utility sector will have a huge impact on regulators, said Clean Edge. The report quotes former FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff saying that regulators will need to change from being rate setters for monopoly markets to become rule setters for competitive markets.

Cities Spearheading Change

Interestingly, the 2014 Clean Energy Trends report explains that cities are now starting to take leadership roles in the transition to a low-carbon economy as a way to buffer themselves against the devastating effects of disasters caused, at least in part, by climate change.  New York, Seattle, Copenhagen, Sydney and others are showcased in the report as setting initiatives that seek to lower carbon emissions within their city limits. 

Many of those low-carbon initiatives center around the building sector, and Clean Edge predicts a rise in net-zero energy buildings in the coming years.  The report points to several high-profile net-zero energy buildings that have been erected over the past two years and said that these buildings are raising awareness and helping to prove the net-zero concept. 

Although skeptics may contend that examples of net zero buildings are isolated, that will change dramatically in coming years. The European Union has mandated that all new public buildings must achieve “nearly zero” energy status by the end of 2018, and that all other new buildings achieve the same status by the end of 2020.

The marriage of clean tech and the Internet is creating a growing “cleanweb” sector and this is another trend to watch according to Clean Edge.  The cleanweb is essentially the use of big data and the Internet to manage resources more efficiently or deploy renewable energy.  Everything from ridesharing to financing large-scale renewable energy projects is part of the clean web. Venture Capitalists are paying close attention to this sector as well as we pointed out in our 2014 Renewable Energy Finance Outlook.

Finally the report shows the growing interest in vertical farming. Clean Edge authors believe that as the world population grows vertical farming will become more and more mainstream.  This is the last of its five trends.

The full 24-page Clean Energy Trends 2014 report can be downloaded for free at the Clean Edge website.

Read full article here:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/03/renewable-energy-trends-illuminated-in-clean-edges-market-report?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=4557407

Finnish wind energy on the way up

Finland has one of the lowest amounts of wind energy capacity in Europe but the situation could be changing. Anni Mikkonen from the Finnish Wind Energy Association tells us why…

Finland’s target for 2020 is to meet 38% of the country’s energy consumption with renewable energies. The main renewable energy sources to meet this target are biomass, wind power and hydro power. In the national renewable energy action plan, the target for wind is 2,500 MW in installed capacity. It is not much compared to the leading wind energy countries in Europe, but it is an ambitious target for a country that has currently got a very modest wind energy capacity – only 198 MW.

So far construction has been extremely slow in Finland, but there will be a change in speed from this year onwards since the feed-in-tariff was implemented in March 2011 and work to remove administrative barriers has started. About 100 MW worth of wind power will be installed this year, which is a good start!

The rise in interest in the Finnish wind power market could also be seen at the EWEA 2012 Annual Event held in Copenhagen last month. There were at least 14 Finnish companies exhibiting – that must have been a record! There were also plenty of Finnish conference and exhibition delegates listening to the interesting presentations and making important connections. It seemed that wherever you went there was always a Finn around the corner!

The Finnish Minister of Economics, Jyri Häkämies, who is also in charge of energy issues, visited the exhibition on the final morning of the event. The visit was a very important signal to the industry showing that there is a really strong political will in Finland to reach the 2020 targets. Minister Häkämies talked about the importance of wind power in meeting the Finnish 2020 targets and said that administrative barriers will be removed.

Like in every other market, wind power in Finland still faces challenges. One of these could be local acceptance. However, public acceptance of wind energy is very high – according to a survey carried out by the Federation of Energy Industries in spring 2012, over 89% of Finns would like to see more wind power installed. The communications academy organised by EWEA after the conference gave participants excellent ideas on how to work with local people to gain local acceptance. For example, I was really interested to learn about a number of studies the Canadian Wind Energy Association have made on wind energy and health. Moreover, information I gained from wind farm developers and other national associations will help me write a code of conduct for Finnish developers later this year.

By Anni Mikkonen, Finnish Wind Power Association

source: http://www.ewea.org

Wind Power Research in Focus 2013

TIME AND PLACE

16-17th of September, Chalmers kårhus, Gothenburg

PARTICIPANTSThe conference is aimed at researchers, administrators in planning and permitting processes, developers, consultants, operators in utilities and manufacturing companies.

PROGRAM
Day 1 has a Nordic theme and speakers from all Nordic countries are invited. The topics will range from ice on blades, electric power systems, maintenance offshore, wind power in forested areas, noise from wind power, effects on wildlife and golden eagles.

Day 2 will have two parallel sessions with technical and environmental focus respectively.

Overview program

Detailed program

PRICE
1000 SEK for both days. There will be an additional fee of 350 SEK for the evening buffet day 1.

REGISTRATION
Register to the conference at vif2013.axaco.se

Last day to register is the 4th of September.

ORGANISERS: Research program for Cold climate, Vindval, Vindforsk and Swedish Wind Power Technology Centre (SWPTC)

Analysis of wind turbine statistics in Finland

Few years ago Anders Stenberg has written a Master´s thesis on the development of wind power until today (2010) and the future wind power scenario in Finland. Pointing out there will be a large increase in wind power according to the target. This development will also have an influence on compiling of statistics as the amount of data grows. 

The thesis also deals with the operational principle of a wind turbine and the most important components of the system.

Main finding is probably that the main causes of downtime are failures in the gear and the hydraulic system. The largest number of failures arises in the hydraulic system. The downtime is spread evenly over the life time of a turbine with about 200 hours of downtime per year and turbine with the exception of the oldest turbines
in the survey. This was due to an increase in downtime in the hydraulic system and tip brakes of older turbines. This result indicates a rise in downtime as the turbine reaches an age of 15 years.

Statistics of production have been compiled since 1992 and the failure statistics since 1996. The failure statistics between years 1996 and 2008 are examined and contains data from 72 wind turbines.

The thesis (in Swedish) is available here: (pdf)