I would like to know that is it possible to ignore the O&M costs in comparison with their Capital costs when we are going to find the optimal size of renewable energy sources such as small-scale wind power plants (WPP), photovoltaic (PV) units, and energy storage systems (ESS) in the medium-term planning?
In my opinion, the total costs (capital + O&M + others) should be converted into a $/MW value. This will then represent a single value which can be used in the optimization to determine optimal capacity.
For example, in energy storage, you can get the capital value of a battery (i.e. 500 $/kWh in 2012 for lithium ion batteries for EVs) and then you can run the O&M costs in the optimization, which will include degradation, buying and selling energy. More info in the paper below.
Article Optimal Operation and Services Scheduling for an Electric Ve...
No cannot, cleaning the glass cover surface for PV unit to keep efficiency of solar cell is must, and lubricating and cleaning is needed for wind turbine too, for better efficiency Hence running cost could be considerable. As there is no fuel cost, the O&M cost would be 85 to 90 % less than plant working with fuel, and it depends on size of plant too..
I am grateful for your kind answers.
According to the following paper, is it true to say that the fixed O&M costs of PV and WPP units (in $/MW-year) are added to their corresponding capital costs ($/MW) and thus all of them have been considered in the total budget?
Data 4164 Robust Decision Making Tool in Smart Grid SG2014
Dear Morteza,
you can find details about PV invesments and O&M cost in EC JRC PV status report 2013. Status report is available at following link:
http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/remea/sites/remea/files/pv_status_report_2013.pdf
As usually O&M costs are important but quite dependent by the location and application. In particular for PV the site influence is very important including for example the availability of water for cleaning or similar things. Moreover for wind turbine the location may be a very important aspect to be considered together the envirnoment conditions (i.e. off shore applications is more demanding than on shore etc.).
Therefore, I do not agree with the idea to consider O&M together with capital costs, they are strongly related to the management and operative conditions, while capital costs are related to initial cash and payback period etc.
On the other the degradation is not a O&M cost, is a typical aspect of the device, O&M may reduce the degradation impact or improve during the life of the plant the performance, but it is not a O&M cost, it is a negative performance of the palnt.
Dear Morteza,
The O&M can not be neglected for the system cost of PV and wind. It is more for wind as it contains moving parts. There is also the maintenance of the electronics
which can make out an appreciable fraction of the total cost.
Best wishes
O&M cost should be added to the equation for calcluating the PV assets (wind assets) to determine their real net values.
Badly calcuated and/or performed O&M is a killer for the business case of a RE (Reneable Energy) system.
Therefor I agree to included it into the €/kWh costs. The only quite undefined parameter is the life-time of the system as you can easily degrecase €/kWh while increasing the assumed life time. The net value of the RE system will not be be 0€ at the end of life - obiously!
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Energy
- Energy-Generating Resources
- Renewable Energy