Repowering a wind farm can nearly triple its capacity, while reducing the number of turbines by a quarter, according to new data from WindPower Europe.
Increase capacity and fewer turbines on the same site is a “win-win-win” situation for energy security, public acceptance and biodiversity, the trade group stated.
Many of Europe’s onshore wind farms are reaching the end of their operational life: 14GW of Europe’s existing wind farms have already been running for more than 20 years and 78GW will have been by 2030.
Denmark, Spain and Portugal have the oldest wind fleets in relative terms, WindPower Europe’s analysis highlighted, with the average wind turbine older than 12 years.
Germany has the largest installed capacity which could potentially be repowered with 17GW older than 15 years.
In Europe 170 wind farms have so far been repowered, more than half of them in Germany, with the Netherlands repowering the most at present while other countries “need to step up their game”.
WindEurope said Spain, Italy and Denmark need more coherent strategies to reap the benefits of repowering.
Most wind farms reaching end of life currently opt for some form of lifetime extension, often because legislative frameworks for repowering are not in place.
New data presented at EoLIS2022 shows that on average repowering reduces the number of turbines in a wind farm by a quarter while increasing the farm’s installed capacity by 2.7 times and tripling its electricity output.
“Repowering is a win-win-win game. The oldest wind farms are usually on the best wind sites but have the least efficient turbines.
“Repowering them makes the best use of the sites.
“You can triple the output with 25% fewer turbines. And local communities welcome it, not least when they’ve already seen the economic benefits of have a wind farm,” said WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson.
On 1-2 December the European wind industry meets in Ghent for WindEurope’s End-of-Life Issues and Strategies conference (EoLIS2022).