A Workflow and Estimate for the Economic Viability of Offshore Wind Projects

Abstract

Wind power is the fastest growing sector of electricity generation in the world and offshore wind resources have become a key component of this growth. This paper proposes a general workflow to model offshore wind projects and demonstrates the model using hypothetical projects. It uses net present value (NPV) to indicate economic viability via specification of equations for NPV, and development of probability distributions of NPV for offshore wind projects in the United States. It also examines the probability distributions of NPV for hypothetical utility-scale offshore wind projects. The analysis performed illustrates the effect of various factors on the NPV distributions and examines thresholds that may promote investment in offshore wind projects based on electricity price and average mean wind speed. Further, the effect of tax incentives on project viability is examined. The workflow and estimation demonstrate that offshore wind projects can be economically viable.