Economic feasibility of large community feed-in tariff-eligible wind energy production in Nova Scotia

Mudasser, Muhammad; Yiridoe, Emmanuel K.; Corscadden, Kenneth

Economic feasibility of large community feed-in tariff-eligible wind energy production in Nova Scotia

2013

Mudasser, Muhammad | Yiridoe, Emmanuel K. | Corscadden, Kenneth

Nova Scotia, Canada's community feed-in tariff (COMFIT) scheme is the world's first feed-in tariff program specifically targeting locally-based renewable energy projects. This study investigated selected turbine capacities to optimize electricity production, based on actual wind profiles for three sites in Nova Scotia, Canada (i.e., Sydney, Caribou Point, and Greenwood). The turbine capacities evaluated are also eligible under the current COMFIT-large scheme in Nova Scotia, including 100kW, 900kW and 2.0MW turbines. A capital budgeting model was developed and then used to evaluate investment decisions on wind power production. Wind duration curves suggest that Caribou Point had the highest average wind speeds but for shorter durations. By comparison, Sydney and Greenwood had lower average wind speeds but with longer durations. Electricity production cost was lowest for the 2.0MW turbine in Caribou Point ($0.07 per kWh), and highest for the 100kW turbine located in Greenwood ($0.49 per kWh). The most financially viable wind power project was the 2.0MW turbine assumed to operate at 80m hub height in Caribou Point, with NPV=$251,586, and BCR=1.51. Wind power production for the remaining two sites was generally not financially feasible for the turbine capacities considered. The impact of promoting local economic development from wind power projects was higher in a scenario under which wind turbines were clustered at a single site with the highest wind resources than generating a similar level of electricity by distributing the wind turbines across multiple locations.

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