Evolucion tecnologica de la industria eolica

This Master of Science Thesis studies the wind power industry evolution with the objective of evaluating its current status, the near future development and the alternatives to the wind turbine dominant design. For achieving that objective, the study is based on industry evolution analysis tools as the industry life-cycle theories the technology cycles and the ARI model (Accelerated Radical Innovation) which focuses on the development and market penetration of the radical innovations. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part presents the industry life-cycle theories, the technology cycles and the industry dynamics. On this part there is a special focus on the ARI model. The second part provides a brief summary of the history of the wind power industry and also of the key-factors that have influenced on the industry development. This second part also studies the characteristics of the alternative models of wind turbines and their potential for entering into the market of the electricity generators. The third and last part of the thesis evaluates the information exposed on the second part according to the explained theories. The results show a clear growing trend of the sector and also an evident technological trend toward bigger and more powerful wind turbines. The maturity stage is not expected to arrive until at least the year 2020. During this process the industry will have to achieve several challenges in order to meet the expectative. Two of the most important challenges are: the necessities of lower the total cost of the wind energy production and, also, develop wind turbines that adapt better to the conditions of the location for, thus, optimize their efficiency. As for the alternative models, for the moment there is not any design with enough potential to substitute the dominant design as massive electricity generator in a short and medium term. However, for the domestic and small scale electricity generation there are a great variety of models for its big potential for the future implementation in rural and urban areas. This thesis, among all the studied models, emphasizes three particular designs: the multi-rotor wind turbine, the Magnus wind turbine and the helicoidally vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) as an evolution of the Darrieus turbine. /Kir1