Economic Feasibility of 1kW Micro-ScaleWind Turbines for North Cyprus

Electricity generation with fossil fuels is considered as one of the most significant means of carbon dioxide emission which has a major impact in the world climate changes. Nowadays, the renewable energy resources are desirable, since they are environmentally friendly and have low emissions in comparison to traditional resources of energy. In recent years, wind energy conversion units have been the fastest growing renewable energy technology all around the world. The present work is concerned with the economic feasibility of micro-scale wind turbines. In this study life cycle cost analysis is applied for different 1- kW capacity models under different wind speeds in North Cyprus condition. Poor selection of turbine may lead to an economically suboptimal investment. Six micro-scale wind turbines studied were Aeolos- H, Aeolos- V, Maglev CXF- V, Zonhan- H, Senwei- V and Airforce1- H. For feasibility it is required that the net present value should be positive or in other words the savings-to-investment ratio should be greater than 1. The results show that SW-1kW, ZH-1kW and Aeolos-H demonstrated feasibility at 5 m/s, 7 m/s and 9 m/s wind speeds respectively in scenario A which includes feed in tariff of 0.07 USD. In scenario B, which does not employ any feed in tariff, SW-1 kW and ZH-1 kW are found to be feasible at average wind speeds of 6 m/s and 8 m/s respectively. Keywords: Wind energy, Renewable energy, Micro-scale wind turbine, Economic feasibility, Life cycle cost analysis, North Cyprus