Cost reduction
Nowadays the offshore wind energy needs to become more competitive to be feasible in cost terms in deep waters. And this is the main objective of the Windcrete concept.
Last decade has proved that bottom fixed solutions are competitive in shallow waters. But their cost increases sharply for water depths larger than 60m. For this reason, there is much interest on developing new floating concepts which can reduce the cost of offshore floating wind energy and could be deployed beyond the depths of the continental shelves, which are rather limited out of the North sea.
The main cost reductions provided by the Windcrete concept result from its reduced CAPEX. Particularly because:
Concrete structures are cheaper than the steel ones.
A cost effective installation process.
The use of simple anchors and mooring lines, which cost depends on their length.
Additionally, the use of concrete allow a reduction of the OPEX because of its endurance in harsh environments and longer service life.
OPEX
CAPEX
Life-span
LCOE
LCOE study
A detailed LCOE study for the Windcrete concept was develop during the AFOSP project by Ebenhoch et al. (2015). According to the results of this study, in favourable scenarios and taking advantage the very good scalability of the concept in using powerful wind turbines, a LCOE of 12€ct/kWh could be expected during commercialization.
