Analysis the economics of sustainable electricity by wind and its future perspective

Abstract

Since the prices of oil and gasoline increase, the wind power will become increasingly competitive. So, one should present the safe conclusions with respect to the economic viability in terms of investment and operation of the wind turbines at a given location. Egypt enjoys fully a high potentiality of wind energy and its applications, nevertheless the study of this renewable source is still below the required level. Technical assessment of a two wind farms of 300 MW installed capacity has been presented on the proposed locations, where the correct roughness factor was estimated and the rate of wind power density potential per month at 100 m altitude has been derived. Frequency distributions, monthly capacity factor and annual full load hours have been investigated to choose the best suitable wind turbines over there. Annual capacity factors are high ranged between 44% and 42%, respectively, that represents 3855 h of annual operation hours in Kharga station, while 3680 of operative yearly hours were at Dakhla South station. The considered wind farms could generate 1130 GWh of electricity per year. Average cost per kWh is around 2 € cent. In terms of practical economic analysis and considerations given in this paper, Kharga and Dakhla South sites are global areas for wind power plants and have the ability to generate electricity with low price. Also, it is lower than the local electricity tariff in Egypt, which was generated by other ways through the fiscal year 2017/2018, that is equivalent to 5.4 US cent per kilowatt-hour. As a result, this great amount of electricity produced from this venture is relatively more than the needs of Egypt and can be exported to Southern European countries on the Mediterranean Sea, that will reduce the domestic fossil fuel consumption and create a clean regional climate by preventing thousands of tons of carbon emissions per year.