On February 24-25, 2022, the first wind power operation and maintenance technical transformation conference was held in Beijing. Yue Jian, Deputy General Manager of the Product Center of Beijing Goldwind Huineng Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Goldwind Huineng"), shared Goldwind Technology with the title of "Challenges and Economic Analysis of Technical Transformation and Upgrading of Wind Turbines from "Big to Small" Thinking and practice in the field of wind power post-service.

Scale development of existing wind farms

Driven by the "30·60" dual-carbon goal, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the scale of my country's new energy power generation assets has expanded rapidly. The state and local governments have successively introduced supporting policies for the renovation of old machines, and put forward more specific requirements in terms of time limit, procedures, and electricity price subsidies after upgrading and renovation, and clarified the layout direction for "replacing the small with the big".

The solutions for improving the quality and efficiency of the stock show a trend of in-depth integration of multiple production factors. In the past two years, the developers have taken multiple measures as the starting point of safety, efficiency, development and maximum value: "Failure-free Wind Farm", "Wind Hunting Action" , "replacing capacity with increase" has achieved remarkable results, and the technological transformation and upgrading of "replacing small with large" has become a new hot topic.

The increasingly mature technology of large-scale onshore units, old and retrofit technologies, as well as the application of new service models and new tools and methods have laid the foundation for existing wind farms to be "big" and "new", and the wind power after-service market is expected to become a new one. market growth.

Old wind farms have low power generation efficiency, high operation and maintenance costs, and good wind resource endowment; there are few high-quality site selection for new projects, and the return on investment of old wind farms is initially attractive, with an average annual wind speed of 7-9 m/s. If the old wind farms are refurbished, the internal rate of return on investment can reach more than 10%; under the condition that the land acquisition area does not increase, the capacity of old wind farms can generally be increased by 1 to 1.5 times, which has a certain contribution to the growth of asset scale.

Renovation and renovation of old wind farms, "replacing the small with the big" does not advocate "one size fits all". The domestic existing wind farms are huge in scale and have various scenarios. Actively exploring and practicing inefficient asset identification, residual value assessment, diversification of reuse, and combination of renovation plans are the basis for the disposal of old wind farms. "One strategy for one machine" will become the core idea of wind farm reconstruction in multiple scenarios.

In the future, the existing wind farms will present a situation of "adapting measures to local conditions, taking multiple measures simultaneously, and coexisting in coordination".

Economic Considerations of Old Retrofits

Retrofitting and upgrading old wind farms can save part of the land acquisition cost, additional unit disassembly cost and power generation loss during the technical renovation, which weakens the construction cost advantage with newly built wind farms. At the same time, the current renovation and upgrading of old wind farms lacks scale advantages, and the cost is higher than that of new large-scale wind power base projects.

Although the demolition of old units will reduce the total assets, it is also an effective way to bail out non-performing assets, and the overall value of the project has been comprehensively improved after the technical renovation, and the original resources (assets and sites) have also been optimally utilized.

The actual power generation hours of the old wind farms are between 1500 and 1800 hours, which belongs to the relatively "inefficient" category, which is consistent with the results shared by the General Institute of Hydropower Planning and Design.

"Combining the statistical analysis results of nearly 200 project leads, the calculation boundary is based on the cost of a single kilowatt of 4,500 yuan (plus or minus 500 yuan) and the annual equivalent power generation hours of the original project of 1,500 hours in order to achieve the full investment internal rate of return (IRR) 8 % calculation, we believe that the technical conditions and cost conditions of 'replacing the small with the big' have become mature," Yue Jian concluded.

All parties link up and work together

Yue Jian put forward prospects and ideas on how to build a shared and integrated ecosystem for the wind power after-service market.

He said: To achieve "overall planning and resource sharing", all parties need to work together and work together. The first is to accelerate the comprehensive construction of various supportive industry standards; the second is to promote the distribution of regional resources to form a complete industrial chain for the recycling and reuse of decommissioned units; the third is to take multiple measures to develop in a coordinated manner, and form a system of quality improvement and efficiency + elimination and renewal. The new normal.Editor/Ma Xue