Comparison of cost indicators of Ukrainian wind farms with cost indicators of wind energy global producers

Abstract

Efficiency improvement in wind conversion field is the most critical scientific-and-technical problem, which is chiefly settled by increasing the power of wind turbines. A new technique was pioneered for determining the efficiency of wind turbines operation in the wind conditions of the Northern Black Sea region of Ukraine. It is found out that the main parameters that have an impact on the cost of electricity are as follows: the cost of a wind turbine itself and annual electric energy production. The cost indicators of wind turbines of the Ukrainian wind farms were defined in the wind conditions of the Northern Black Sea region in 2018, according to which it was ascertained that the cost of electric energy generated in Ukraine was by 17 % cheaper as compared to the world cost value. In illustration of application of the first ever developed technique, we have made the assessment of effective operation of the Ukrainian wind farms in the years of 2019 – 2020. The results obtained bear compelling evidence as to the correlations between the cost of produced electric energy and the size of wind turbines. In view of the above, application of wind turbines of super-large sizes in the conditions of the Northern Black Sea area of Ukraine (as well as in other regions of the world) is hardly expedient due to increase in the cost of electric power generated by them.