Sri Lankan wind energy

industry
– Why we should do it?

Mahinsasa Narayana
The potential of Renewable Energies
 Wind Power's Beginnings

A 19th-century American
Power Sailing Ships
knock-of of the Persian
panemone that probably
made a wonderful clothes
dryer. 3
 Electricity by wind energy
• Small wind turbines
e s
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win
red
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ufa
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ally
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Lo
Energy: Foreign or Local?
• Large wind turbines
Plant Energy
source
Coal power Foreign/Local Foreign
Wind power Foreign/Local Local (free)
Cannulised foreign cost
COE 
Eannual energy generation
Hambantota pilot wind farm
Cost of Foreign Energy= US$/kWh
Required Energy

5
 Cost of wind energy in Sri Lanka (Large scale wind
power generations)

• Cost of energy depends on the capital cost of the plant,

installation cost, commissioning cost, operation cost and
maintenance cost.
• Cost of wind energy is highly site-specific as wind potential
depends on the location.
• In this study, three locations are selected in Hambantota, Kalpitiya
and Ambewela regions and the cost of wind energy generation is
calculated based on the predicted wind potential of each location.
• Capacity of 3MW wind system (NEG MICON 600kW, 5 units) was
installed in Hambantota region as a pilot plant. The total project
cost was around US$ 3 million. Therefore, to determine the cost of
wind energy at the each selected locations in Sri Lanka,
concerning the experience of the Hambantota pilot wind plant,
capital cost and installation cost of one 600kW wind turbine is
taken as US$600000.

Source: M Narayana; Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume XII No. 1, March 2008

6
WRAM Wind resources map
for Sri Lanka

Kalpitiya

Ambewela

Hambantot 7
a
 Cost of wind energy in each locations in Sri Lanka
Region Location Cost of wind energy
N E
Hambantota 060 08.6’ 810 09.47’ 0.083US$/kWh
Hambantota (Existing 060 08.4’ 810 6.6’ 0.15US$/kWh
CEB wind turbine site)
Kalpitiya 080 11.0’ 790 42.5’ 0.0455US$/kWh

Ambewela 060 53.6’ 800 46.4’ 0.022US$/kWh

According to this study, cost of wind energy in Kalpitiya and Ambewela is more
competitive than Hambantota. As well as Hambantota some other locations
are better than the existing CEB wind turbine site. As this is only a comparison
study, it is not considered about possibility of land acquisition. Therefore,
detail micro-sitting should be done by considering land acquisition and grid &
road accessibility for selecting wind sites.

Source: M Narayana; Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume XII No. 1, March 2008 8
 Capital costs and payback periods

Turbine size Capital cost Feed-in-Tariff Simple

per turbine generation payback
W
or rate (current, period
ld £/kWh)
Building-mounted sc £10,000 £0.27 May not payback
micro (2.5kW) en within lifetime
ar
Micro (6kW)
io
£20 - £28,000 £0.27 May not payback
within lifetime

Small (20 - 50kW) £50,000 - £125,000 £0.24 8 - 15 years

Medium (100kW - £250,000 to £1.8 £0.09 - £0.19 7 - 9 years

850kW) million

Large (1MW - £2 million - £3.3 £0.05 - £0.09 less than 1 year - 5

2.5MW) million years

10Rs.-18Rs.
The estimated cost of
energy for wind energy is
7.70 Rs./kWh and the
average cost of energy in Sri
Lanka is 13.40Rs./kWh.
Source: "Generation Performance in Sri Lanka
2012 (First Half) " Public Utilities Commission of
Sri Lanka and
http://www.powersrilanka.com/visitors.html,"
2013.

Tier 1 Tier 1 Tier 1

Wind 22.05 8.48 4.82

Wind-Local 22.60 8.69 4.94
Electricity Production Cost

11
 Installation cost
• The typical small system costs are $3,000 - $5,000 per kW
capacity installed[1].
• The rooftop turbine market is still in the early stages of
development, but manufacturers estimate that once mass
production starts, an average 1-1.5 kW model will cost
around $ 1,500 per kW capacity installed[2].
• The cost of large, megawatt scale, wind turbines is today
about $1200 per kW capacity. Most commercial wind
turbine are in
the range of 2 MW
• The annual maintenance costs are between 1.5% and 3% of
the turbine cost but increase with time as the turbines get
older[3].

Reference:
[1] http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind_smallwind.htm
[2] BWEA Small Wind Turbine FAQ. 2009 [cited; Available from: http://www.bwea.com/small/faq.html#cost.
[3] 2009 [cited August 18, 2009]; Available from:
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/05-06/constr_village/renowable_wind_turbine.htm
12
 Power generation system
 Prime (firm) power generations are the large
power plants and commissioning according to the
generation expansion plan in the country.
 Embedded power generations are fed into the
400V or 33kV network.

13
 Absorptive capacity for embedded generation in Sri Lanka

Source: Siemens Power Technologies

International Ltd, Technical Assessment of the
Generation Absorption Capacity of the Sri
Lanka Power System – Final Report, RERED

• Necessary reinforcements should be done to the

network to eliminate the overload and voltage
conflicts under normal and abnormal system
operation
• In these studies, it was assumed that the output of all
CEB generation was reduced as the output of embedded
generation was increased

14
• Installed Wind power is 2.5% of installed capacity in Sri
Lanka
• Total Installed embedded generation is 10% of installed
capacity
Source: Statistical Digest 2013, CEB
 Cost based on Indian context
Installing a 10-kW wind generator

Source: WIND LETTER THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION,
Volume 25 Issue No. 1 – January, 2006
Local and Foreign contributions
to small wind turbine installation
60m 80m 100m
tower tower tower

Local (Foundation, Tower, 41% 42% 44%

installation and
commissioning)
Foreign (wind turbine and 59% 58% 56%
inverter)
Grid connected small wind
turbines ……

Grid connected small wind

turbines are becoming
popular in urban areas

r in g
m e te
t-
Ne 18
Small Wind turbines operating
principles
Rotor
DC bus Main grid
or
Local grid
PMG
AC-DC DC-DC DC-AC

 = =
= = 

Currant

Input signals Voltage

for controller
Duty cycle

Schematic of small wind power system

19
 Monthly mean wind speed, energy production
and grid purchases for selected sites (Sri Lanka)

According to the wind resource data for each location, the Skystream
(2.4kW) wind turbine can generate 990kWh/year in Colombo suburbs and
4959 kWh/year near Hambantota.
Annual Grid Sales and Purchases in Sri-Lankan locations as percentages of annual load
consumption of 1993 kWh
Main components of a wind turbine and their share of
the overall turbine cost for a 5MW wind turbine
 a l
l oc
in
b le
i
ss
Po

a l
l oc
in
b le
s si
Po lattice towers
 e s
i e nc
e r
xp
t e
s
Pa

Palmer Putnam's 1.25-

megawatt wind turbine
was one of the engineering
marvels of the late 1930's, The turbine failed in March 1945,
but the jump in scale was when strong winds tore off one of
too great for available its blades.
24
materials.
Can we make large wind rotor
blade in Sri Lanka?
Capacity and wind rotor
size of the wind turbines
Growth in size of commercial wind
turbine designs
• Generators:

• Controls
 Cost of Wind energy

et
• 68% cost component by Local

rg
ta
technology

e
bl
• 32% cost component Foreign

i
ss
Po
technology

How much of foreign cost component in

Solar, Hydro and Coal power generations???
Oil is still the king
The USGS assessment identifies more
than 3000billion barrels recoverable
conventional oil are available in the
world
Non conventional oil from tar sands and
shales will play an increasingly
important role after 2020 and 30 years
afterwards.
Coal will also become important in some
countries.
30
Do we need to move renewables?

If governments are serious about

moving to renewables, they cannot
rely on the market to do it for them.

31
Why renewable energy?

Environmental friendly
Need not foreign currency
Can not control the prices of
oil/coal
– The price is not determined by free
market.
Limitation of fossil fuel

32
 Conclusions

Considerable amount of wind power potential

installed capacity is available in Sri Lanka.
Absorptive capacity of wind energy to the national
network is limited.
At present, there is possibility to develop further
around 100MW wind power generations in Sri
Lanka.
Wind power generation can be further expanded,
according to the future development of the
network.
Cost of wind power generation is competitive with
the other sources of renewable in Sri Lanka.
If government is serious about moving to
renewables, they cannot rely only on the market
and should also consider the socio-economic & 33
34