Deng Yuanchang, deputy director of the Wind Resource Research Center at Sun Yat-sen University, claims in this article in the San Jose Mercury News that "With the development of wind turbine technology in China, the price is already falling worldwide. The price has come down about 20 percent." Unfortunately, the article doesn't follow up on this remarkable assertion.
I could see reasonable arguments both supporting and refuting this claim; there are more companies making wind turbines using better/cheaper technologies, but there's also a great deal more demand. My initial search for confirmation didn't dig up any other pieces talking about a 20% drop in wind power technology prices, and I don't have ready access to historical cost trends. I do, however, know that many WC readers have been looking at the wind industry for awhile, so let me throw the question to you folks: are the costs of wind power systems falling? And the 20% claim -- presumably over just the last decade or less, as China wasn't aggressively pushing wind until recently -- is this true?
"The technology has improved dramatically in the last few years. The cost has declined and the reliability has increased. That has a big factor on the economics," Maritime Electric president Jim Lea says.
When I have time, I'll figure out who that group is that is spending CAD$60 million on turbines, and spending an extra $30 for transmission capacity. PEI is now set to surpass its 15% renewable target by 2010.
Posted by: Daniel Haran on December 19, 2005 12:57 PM
Even if the market price hasn't fallen yet because of scarcity, if the production price has dropped, it's a step in the right direction.
Indeed there are now Chinese manufacturers of wind turbines, primarily aimed at the local market, either coastal (the recent riots near Hong Kong that ended in the deaths of 20+ people involved in part the location of a wind farm) or plains, such as the vast steppes near Mongolia. The cost of labour is low, of course, and the components that make up a turbine are not more high tech than any other durable good.
Indeed turbine production is becoming a durable good with production meeting economy of scale manufacturing based on a reference design, which means that a single design for turbines will eventually dominate due to its price point.
Smaller manufacturers and ones used to high margins to pay for development costs may get squeezed out once this happens.
Its a combo of mass production and changes in tech. Now adays you simply have tech that allows moving objects to last alot longer then in 1980 or even 1995. Also The bigger the turbine the better and big designs have come.
Also the ability to cheaply make massive parts and ship them is recent.
Finaly power management tech has changed alot and the grid can handle wind power much better then before. Alot was wasted before due to power management needs that ate up alot of the energy.
Posted by: wintermane on December 20, 2005 9:19 AM
Thanks, folks -- lots of interesting info here.
To be clear, I understand why this might be happening, and I would not be surprised if there was a significant drop *in China*. What I'm looking for is confirmation that wind power tech prices have dropped globally by 20% or so in recent years.
Posted by: Jamais Cascio on December 20, 2005 9:49 AM
The price of a windmill and more importantly maintaining it has dropped alot more then 20% in recent years.
Posted by: wintermane on December 20, 2005 3:16 PM
worldchanging was founded on the idea that real solutions already exist for building the future we want. it's just a matter of grabbing hold and getting moving.
