Understanding the Potential of Wind Farm Exploitation in Tropical Island Countries: A Case for Indonesia

Abstract

Countries worldwide must dramatically reduce their emissions to achieve the goal of limiting temperature increases in line with the Paris Agreement. Involving developing countries in global actions on emission reduction will greatly enhance the effectiveness of global warming mitigation. This study investigated the feasibility of establishing a wind farm at four onshore and three offshore sites in Indonesia. Installing wind turbines with the highest hub height, largest rotor diameter, and lowest cut-in and rated wind speed in an identified area off Wetar Island presented the highest time-based availability and a capacity factor of 46%, as well as the highest power-based availability at 76%. The levelized cost of electricity at 0.082 USD/kWh was comparable to that of power generated from fossil fuels, which ranges from 0.07 to 0.15 USD/kWh in Indonesia. Increasing the feed-in-tariff for wind power from the current 0.08 USD/kWh would provide sufficient incentive for investment. Moving subsidies from fossil fuels toward renewables would facilitate the transition to low-carbon renewables without increasing the financial burden on the country.

Combined Operation of Wind-Pumped Hydro Storage Plant with a Concentrating Solar Power Plant for Insular Systems: A Case Study for the Island of Rhodes

“…One reason for this sensitivity is the low availability in conventional energy resources for base-load electricity production. As a result, the electricity production is often based on imported fossil fuels, affecting the security of the energy supply to the insular system and contributing to increased electricity costs [1,2] At the same time, islands incorporate ecosystems of high environmental value that necessarily impose constraints on the employed technologies for electricity production. Fortunately, the widespread potential of renewable energy sources (RES), primarily wind and solar, in combination with the above insular features, in most cases favors the installation of RES technologies for electricity production [3,4].…”

Taperless blade manufacturing using NREL’S 833 air foil on horizontal axis wind turbine

“…The wind speed in Indonesia is generally between 4 m/s to 5 m/s. However, in certain areas, such as on the coast, the wind speed can reach 10 m/s (Fauzy et al, 2021;Nurlatifah et al, 2021).…”