Implementing agreement for a programme of research and development on wind energy conversion systems

The increasing costs and impending scarcity of fossil fuels as well as strong public objection against nuclear power plants and fossil fuel burning facilities have increased interest in the use of wind energy for electricity generation. In order that wind turbines will be added to the generation mix, however, " Costeffectiveness" must be assured above all. Because at the time of this writing large wind energy conversion systems (WECS) are still in a state of development and not yet commercially available, the cost of WECS are still unknown. Therefore breakeven cost of WECS have been calculated. The breakeven value gives the amount that can be invested in WECS with no cost or reliability disadvantages. The value is mainly composed of the fuel savings which result from displacing high costenergy produced by fossil-fired plants and the capacity savings which result from the displacement of conventional capacity or from the sale of capacity. In addition, socioeconomique benefits (key words: non polluting energy source, no import of the primary energy) and socioeconomique costs (key words: visual impacts, television interference) should be included in the breakeven-costs as well. However, these costs and benefits cannot be measured in monetary units like the fuel savings and the capacity savings. As I shall concentrate on the WECS evaluation on a business like level, socioeconomique aspects will not be discussed in this paper