Windkraft Onshore
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THINK ACT BEYOND MAINSTREAM January 2016 Onshore wind power Playing the game by new rules in a mature market 2 THINK ACT Onshore wind power AT A GLANCE EUROPE'S KEY THE BIG MARKETS FOR ONSHORE WIND POWER 3 P. 8/9 3 different groups of countries figure on Europe's wind power map: climbers, growth leaders and saturated markets. Where the greatest potential remains is revealed in our analysis on page 7 150,000,000,000 euros is the sum that must be invested in the medium term to develop and expand key nodes in the European power grids. But expansion is stagnating, even though new transmission capacity – especially to ramp up wind power – is urgently needed. page 10 45% lower operating costs can be realized by wind farm operators on average, according to Roland Berger's exclusive study of wind farms. Our six levers to improve profitability focus on maintenance, land lease agreements, repairs, insurance, project management and the cost of capital. page 13 THINK ACT 3 Onshore wind power A fresh wind is blowing from Brussels. New rules will soon govern the wind power market. Worldwide, installed wind power generation capacity ture technologies make the breakthrough. Such cut- has increased by a factor of 50 over the past 20 years. backs will affect the wind power industry, whose oper- Attractive government subsidies, mature system tech- ator models – for all the differences that exist around nology and declining costs relative to fossil fuels have Europe – have often been designed to maximize earn- made wind power a competitive option on many Euro- ings from feed-in tariffs. pean markets. Wind power has acquired a solid share Statutory regulation is only one of the challenges of the European energy mix: Onshore wind power has the industry will face in the years ahead, however. Less gone mainstream. And the downside? The political state support can be expected to drive down profits and wind is turning. thus put wind farm operators under greater cost pres- The European Commission is putting increasing sure. At the same time, rapid wind farm growth is pressure on member states to enforce the directives for reaching its limits: Very few sites with good wind expo- greater market orientation and fewer subsidies to pro- sure are still available in many European markets. And mote renewable energy that were ratified back in 2014. in any case, citizens' action groups and local govern- A pilot phase will continue until the end of 2016. After ments regularly oppose ever larger wind parks. It fol- that, licenses for new wind farms should be granted lows that the permit procedure for new farms and for based on tendering procedures, so only the most at- repowering (the necessary replacement of smaller, ag- tractively priced bids will win. The EU Commission ing systems with the latest generation of far larger also wants to see market-oriented feed-in tariffs take wind turbines) could well become a genuine source of over from fixed compensation. In other words, inves- risk for each and every project. tors and future wind farm operators will have to work We also believe that bottlenecks in both financing on the assumption of significant regulatory restric- and the expansion of the European grid infrastructure tions and fiercer competitive pressure. While it re- are being grossly underestimated. Without either, elec- mains to be seen how rigorously member states will tricity will never find its way from windy regions to the actually implement the EU's directives/guidelines, end consumer. many countries are already reviewing their national The list of challenges is clearly a long one. Nonethe- support programs. The UK, for instance, has an- less, onshore wind power still has the potential to ac- nounced plans to slash public support for onshore quire a considerably larger share of the European ener- wind power as early as April 2016 regardless of the EU's gy mix than it occupies today. If that is to happen, all considerations, because it now wants to help less ma- market players must take action. Now. 4 THINK ACT Onshore wind power A mature business model. Onshore wind power will become established as a competitive element of Europe's power supply landscape. Of the various renewable energy sources, onshore Costs are not the only area in which onshore wind pow- wind power currently leads the way in terms of the er is in the lead. For years, the industry has also shown levelized cost of electricity, which dropped by a third itself to be an engine of capital investment and job cre- between 2010 and 2014. Modern turbines and drive ation. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of people systems are efficient. Aerodynamic rotor blades are employed directly in the onshore wind power industry large and lightweight. Whole wind farms can be re- rose by 125% – an average of 33 new jobs a day across motely controlled to optimize wind yields as a func- Europe. At the start of this decade, nearly 150,000 peo- tion of the wind load. Even without government sup- ple worked in Europe's onshore wind power industry. port, that makes onshore wind power from favorable By the end of the decade, that number will have nearly locations cheaper than electricity from coal-fired or doubled to 290,000. nuclear power plants. By contrast, offshore wind pow- The amounts invested are similarly impressive. Ev- er is expensive, mainly because of the expense of in- ery year from 2000 to 2010, between three and twelve salling turbines out at sea. Solar power and electricity billion euros were channeled into onshore wind power generated from biomass are likewise at a cost disad- – figures that are set to increase in the future. Between vantage. Hydropower has reached its natural limits: 2015 and 2030, the market anticipates an annual in- The cost is low, but there is little room to further in- vestment total of 15 billion euros, which works out at a crease its usage. Given this situation, onshore wind cumulative figure of roughly 230 billion euros. power will remain the most important source of re- By 2030, onshore wind will probably generate 13% newable energy in Europe. A The benefits? Capital of Europe's electricity – up from just 6% in 2012. In the investment, employment, lower emissions and ener- same period, coal's share is likely to be cut in half from gy security. 29% to 15%. In Germany alone, power generated from THINK ACT 5 Onshore wind power A COMPETITIVE WIND POWER Harnessing onshore wind is one of the most competitive ways to generate electricity from renewable energy in Europe. Around the globe, the levelized cost of electricity from new plants was down by a third between 2010 and 2014. Only hydropower is cheaper on this score. By contrast, power generated from offshore wind will remain more expensive than onshore wind. However, cost are likely to come down significantly – increasing its competitiveness towards other technologies such as biomass or nuclear energy. In this context our offshore-wind study from 2013 has pointed out that a target of 100 USD per MWh till 2020 could actually be possible. Levelized cost of electricity from renewable energy 179 and conventional power plants [USD per MWh] 149 145 99 93 82 67 Hydropower Onshore Coal Nuclear Solar PV Biomass Offshore wind energy wind Source: Energy Intelligence 2014 6 THINK ACT Onshore wind power wind energy should double by 2030. If the political will To enable further and more detailed analysis, Roland is there, many coal-fired power plants can be taken off Berger awarded points for the attractiveness of the the grid, so less coal and gas will need to be imported key markets in Europe. We rated energy markets from Russia and Norway. In other words, wind power based on several criteria: energy consumption, is significantly reducing our dependence on fossil fu- growth in energy consumption, dependence on im- els, and hence our dependence on imports from other ports, fossil fuel reserves, electricity prices and public countries. subsidy instruments. We then rated wind power mar- Especially in this context, but also in the interests of kets based on the technology environment, wind protecting the environment, we welcome the news that speeds, theoretical capacity potential and actual in- global installed capacity is increasing. Between 2000 stalled capacity. The resultant scores reflect the het- and 2012, it rose by more than 23% per annum. Three erogeneous nature of markets. C years ago, wind power already accounted for more than The markets were evaluated relative to each other. 2.5% of the world's power generation. 140,000 wind tur- Quantification was translated into a Likert scale from bines are already in existence, and our analysis shows 1 to 3. The ratings clearly identify France, Germany, Po- that 120,000 new or repowered ones will be on the grid land, the UK, Italy and the Scandinavian countries as by 2020. The growth rates anticipated for installed ca- key markets. On the other hand, many young markets pacity are enormous, not only in Europe (+55%), China are less attractive – due partly to lower volumes, but (+106%) and North America (+53%). India (+101%) and partly also to relatively unfavorable local conditions. above all Latin America (+296%) are taking huge strides At present, Germany, France and Sweden are the forward to catch up, albeit from a low level. In 2013, the markets with the lowest risk, but only deliver a low re- EU-28 (33%) accounted for the largest share of installed turn on capital invested. Strict conditions for the grant- capacity in the world.