The eco-conscious wind turbine: design beyond purely economic metrics

IF 3.6 Q3 GREEN & SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
H. Canet, A. Guilloré, C. Bottasso
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract. Wind turbines are designed to minimize the economic cost of energy, a metric aimed at making wind competitive with other energy-producing technologies. However, now that wind energy is competitive, how can we increase its value for the environment and for society? And how much would environmental and societal gains cost other stakeholders, such as investors or consumers? This paper tries to answer these questions, limitedly to climate-related environmental impacts, from the perspective of wind turbine design. Although wind turbines produce green renewable energy, they also have various impacts on the environment, as do all human endeavors. Among all impacts, the present work adopts the environmental effects produced by a turbine over its entire life cycle, expressed in terms of CO2-equivalent emissions. A new approach to design is proposed, whereby Pareto fronts of solutions are computed to define optimal trade-offs between economic and environmental goals. The new proposed methodology is demonstrated on the redesign of a baseline 3 MW wind turbine at two locations in Germany, differing for typical wind speeds but within the same energy market. Among other results, it is found that, in these conditions, a 1 % increase in the cost of energy can buy about a 5 % decrease in the environmental impact of the turbine. Additionally, it is also observed that in the specific case of Germany, very low-specific-power designs are typically favored, because they produce more energy at low wind speeds, where both the economic and environmental values of wind are higher. Furthermore, it is found that the CO2-equivalent emissions displaced by a wind turbine are 1 order of magnitude larger than the produced emissions. Although limited to the sole optimization of wind-generating assets at two different locations, these results suggest the existence of new opportunities for the future development of wind energy where, by shifting the focus slightly away from a purely cost-driven short-term perspective, longer-term benefits for the environment (and, in turn, for society) may be obtained.
具有生态意识的风力涡轮机:超越纯粹经济指标的设计
摘要风力涡轮机的设计是为了最小化能源的经济成本,这是一个旨在使风能与其他能源生产技术具有竞争力的指标。然而,既然风能具有竞争力,我们如何才能增加它对环境和社会的价值?环境和社会收益会让其他利益相关者(如投资者或消费者)付出多少代价?本文试图从风力发电机设计的角度来回答这些问题,但仅限于与气候相关的环境影响。虽然风力涡轮机产生绿色可再生能源,但它们也对环境产生各种影响,就像所有人类活动一样。在所有影响中,本研究采用了涡轮机在其整个生命周期中产生的环境影响,以二氧化碳当量排放量表示。提出了一种新的设计方法,通过计算解决方案的帕累托前沿来定义经济和环境目标之间的最佳权衡。新提出的方法在德国两个地点的基线3兆瓦风力涡轮机的重新设计中得到了证明,这两个地点的典型风速不同,但在同一能源市场。在其他结果中,发现,在这些条件下,能源成本增加1%可以购买涡轮机对环境影响减少约5%。此外,还观察到,在德国的具体情况下,非常低比功率的设计通常受到青睐,因为它们在低风速下产生更多的能量,在低风速下,风的经济和环境价值都更高。此外,发现由风力涡轮机取代的二氧化碳当量排放量比产生的排放量大1个数量级。虽然仅限于两个不同地点的风力发电资产的唯一优化,但这些结果表明,风能未来发展存在新的机会,通过将焦点从纯粹的成本驱动的短期角度稍微转移,可以获得对环境(反过来,对社会)的长期效益。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Wind Energy Science
Wind Energy Science GREEN & SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY-
CiteScore
6.90
自引率
27.50%
发文量
115
审稿时长
28 weeks
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