Clearly, such different ways of organizing the O&M jobs have a negative effect on LCOE. N10: ‘Try to think about this situation: yesterday we worked in country A on a turbine from company X, today we work in country B on a turbine from company Y and tomorrow we will work in country C on a turbine from company Z – the same type of jobs to be performed, but companies require a company specific way to do it …. And this can be combined with country specific differences…harmonizing doesn´t exist’. N14: ‘The industry has chosen that GWO (Global Wind Organization) has to develop minimum standards for practical training, so the different companies agree on the same level of practical training…. GWO presents some overall practical standards. The purpose is useable solutions. The starting point for the work is the STCW convention, which is applied to the maritime sector. In this convention, all is regulated into details, and this is not appropriate to the wind sector. Therefore, we have to develop our own standards for practical training’. N9: ‘You can be a little worried when energy company A talks about industrializing and standardization of products and processes as we now have to change all the <specific component> of all the turbines. It is problematic when you standardize products which not are fully developed’. Thus, the different kinds of regulations and standardizations can have both a negative and positive impact on LCOE. The EU tender law has an unintended negative impact on LCOE due to high resource and time consumption. Some of the larger companies try to develop company specific rules and procedures for exactly the same processes – clearly it hinders optimization of processes – with a negative influence on LCOE. On the opposite side, the GWO has managed to develop some minimum standards for practical training – with a positive effect on LCOE. However, these standards are only to a limited degree coordinated with equivalent maritime standards. This is a safety issue because accidents happen in the interfaces. The ownership of a wind park can have a significant influence on how the O&M activities are organized and geographically embedded as the citations below indicate: N5: ‘In developing the new park, we decided at an early time to place the O&M activities in country A as we already had a setup in this country. The park was owned by 2 energy companies – one in country A and the other in country B. The politicians in country B argued for placing some of the activities in their country (B) – even though costs would be higher. The argumentation for placing the activities in country B was primarily because the taxpayers financed a part of the park due to the subsidies’. N5: ‘If you want to do business in this country (C), you have to organize some local activities – local content. An understanding of this is important. In Denmark, the problem is not important at the moment as the foreign companies are not competitive compared with Danish companies’. Many political interests are attached to the establishment of wind parks. Taxpayers are paying 2 – 3 times more for wind park electricity compared to conventionally produced electricity. It is understandable that politicians want local activities as compensation for higher prices – even if it has a negative effect on LCOE. This means that the subsidies in the long term will be necessary for wind farms if these competing self-interests are not solved somehow. Slow political processes can have a negative effect on the efficiency of a wind park. When a park has to be developed, the public authorities have to treat the application as quickly as possible. Otherwise, there is a lack of turnover and inefficient construction of the park, as also illustrated in the following citation: N5:‘…the new park was designed for 750 KW turbines, but the processing times at the public authorities took nearly 10 years, and in the meanwhile, new turbines were developed and the park was provided with 2.3 MW turbines. The consequences of this is a park where the turbines are placed too close to each other – which produces a negative effect on electricity production and on LCOE’. Traditionally, many research and development activities have focused on the development of new components such as wings, gears, operation systems, etc. Many Danish research institutions have contributed to this process (Risø, Lorc, Østerild, etc.). However, little attention has been 40
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