Understanding the variability of wind power costs

Wind power has a significant contribution to make in efforts to abate CO₂ emissions from global energy systems. Currently, wind power generation costs are approaching parity with costs attributed to conventional, carbon-based sources of energy but the economic advantage still rests decidedly with conventional sources. Therefore, there is an imperative to ensure that wind power projects are developed in the most economically optimal fashion. For wind power project developers, shaving a few tenths of a cent off of the kilowatts per hour cost of wind power can mean the difference between a commercially viable project and a non-starter. For civic authorities who are responsible for managing municipally supported wind power projects, optimizing the economics of such projects can attenuate stakeholder opposition. This paper attempts to contribute to a better understanding of how to economically optimise wind power projects by conflating research from the fields of energy economics, wind power engineering, aerodynamics, geography and climate science to identify critical factors that influence the economic optimization of wind power projects.