Beyond LCOE – New Assessment Criteria for Evaluating Wind Energy R&I
As the levelized cost of wind energy (LCOE) continues to fall and make it competitive with fossil-fuel and other conventional generation, new concerns are developing around the value of wind energy in systems with high variable renewable energy shares.
Large shares of wind energy in a system have been shown to have an inverse correlation with average energy prices. Going forward, wind farms will increasingly participate in low-subsidy and even subsidy-free markets and the value of the energy will be just as, if not more, important as LCOE.
Throughout the entire wind energy value chain, from manufacturers to developers to policy makers, there is a need to go “Beyond LCOE” and address the value that wind energy brings to electricity systems and society more broadly.
In a two-day “Beyond LCOE” workshop held in Brussels, Belgium the 23-24th of January 2020, a group of experts from the wind energy research and industry community came together to talk about the challenges and opportunities of looking at the value of wind energy to electricity systems and society.
The workshop report provides a details summary of the discussions and outcome of the intense two-days discussion and maps out the trajectory towards a comprehensive set of metrics for moving beyond LCOE.