The success of wind power integration throughout Europe has been largely varied with some European countries showing large boosts in capacity compared to some which show none at all.  This Thesis looks at those countries that have been successful in order to determine which factors have led to this success and what if any lessons can be learned in order to assist other countries.  The countries studied make up the top three for total wind power capacity and top three for total capacity per capita.  The surrounding elements that affect wind power development are assessed and relevant trends are investigated and discussed.  Factors such as, support instruments and overall governance are discussed in detail with a number of trends being found.  Calculations were conducted developing an average mean annual percentage increase for total capacity which showed that countries with an undeveloped wind power industry switching to a form of quota system could show a boost to total capacity.  No evidence was found that suggested switching to or changing an existing feed in tariff system would result in a boost in installed capacity.  In assessing governance, a trend was discovered showing obligations and targets helped to drive boosts in capacity especially for the countries who implemented a quota system. Brining these two trends together it was determined that strong top level governance was required to actually kick start boosts in total capacity.  The use of combinations of support schemes is assessed and a trend determined that suggests that use a quota system as a primary support scheme is better suited to having tax incentives as a secondary with feed in tariff systems having financial support as a secondary system.  A plan for developing wind power in countries with undeveloped wind power industries is developed based on the trends identified within the Thesis.  This suggests that a switch to a quota system combined with strong EU and national Governance could help to boost capacity to a point at which time a switch to a form of FIT would be beneficial to build on this steady base.

In 2015 a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) expanded the Localism Act in England which effectively gave neighbourhoods the power to decide on onshore wind power development in their area. By doing so, the planning process for such development ‘went local’. Literature on the effects of ‘going local’ during the planning process for onshore wind power development is conflicting. On the one hand, the involvement of local communities can lead to a higher level of trust and hence a higher success rate of development processes. On the other hand, it appears that people are often reluctant to accept wind power develompent in their own area even though they are in favour of the technology in general.  This thesis explores the effects of ‘going local’, in the form of the WMS of 2015 in England, on onshore wind power development by investigating the local and neighbourhood plans, as well as the planning applications, in the administrative County of Cornwall with the help of qualitative document analysis and a thematic analysis framework provided by Braun & Clarke (2006).  The results show that currently 4 out of the 213 Parish and Town Councils in the ceremonial county of Cornwall truly comply with the WMS, which means that onshore wind power development will only be possible in these areas. The development in these and all the other neighbourhoods is limited to small-scale clusters of turbines. In addition to this, the results show that there are four over-arching aspects that play a role in the decision-making process of neighbourhoods: i) benefits for the neighbourhood, ii) negative impacts on the neighbourhood area, iii) socio-political attitude, and iv) conditions set by the neighbourhoods or local authorities.  The results show that, with the current planning policy framework in England, onshore wind power development will be limited to a significant extent in terms of size and possible locations. The conflicting literature on ‘going local’ reappears in the planning documents and a broad range of factors plays a role for all the neighbourhoods. The given weighting to the different factors is what determines a neighbourhood’s stance on onshore wind power development.

Ireland is facing a great challenge in meeting renewable energy requirements, where due to past circumstances and decisions, the nation state is now heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels. Given the contribution of these imported fossil fuels to global climate change, price instability and supply insecurity, Ireland is under a pressing need to face up to the dilemma of an unsustainably fueled economy. This thesis explores how the EU policy process is helping Ireland to achieve the goals it has set with the EU and how these are being incorporated into the drivers of wind power development in Ireland. This research sought to uncover the dynamic of this relationship - the goodness of fit - through an assessment of three mechanisms of change, namely: Discourses, Directives and Finances, which were drawn on from the theoretical approach of Europeanisation. By doing a combined assessment of these three channels and their influence, this thesis provides a greater understanding of the ways in which the development of wind power in Ireland is influenced by the EU level. The thesis finishes with a concluding discussion on the importance of the national level in this process, as well as the importance of social and community engagement, which despite being previously seen as important, has to date largely manifested as a tokenistic gesture in Ireland. This thesis reasserts it as a common and crucial thread of the renewable energy transition that continuously arose as being pre-eminent during this study.

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate different repowering alternatives from the viewpoint of increasing power production from existing offshore wind farms (OWF), as some of the first commissioned OWFs are approaching the end of their expected lifetime. The thesis presents a literature review of components and financial aspects that are of importance for repowering of OWFs. In the literature review, risks and uncertainties regarding repowering are also lifted and analysed. The thesis contains a case study on Horns Rev 1 OWF, where three different repowering scenarios are evaluated by technical and financial performance, aiming to compare the cost of repowering alternatives. The design of the case study is based around previous studies of offshore repowering having focused mainly on achieving the lowest possible levelized cost of energy (LCoE) and highest possible capacity factor, often resulting in suggested repowering utilizing smaller wind turbines than the existing ones. In order to evaluate the financial viability of repowering alternatives, the software RETScreen Expert was used to estimate the annual energy production (AEP) after losses and calculate the net present value (NPV) and LCoE for lifetime extension and full repowering utilizing different capacity wind turbines. Input values from the literature as well as real wind resource measurements from the site was utilized to achieve as accurate results as possible. The result of the case study shows that repowering of OWFs have the possibility of providing a very strong business case with all scenarios resulting in a positive NPV as well as lower LCoE than the benchmarked electricity production price. Although the initial investment cost of the different repowering alternatives presented in this thesis still are uncertain to some extent, due to the lack of reliable costs for repowering alternatives, this thesis provides a base for further research regarding the repowering of OWFs.

This Bachelor thesis has been written at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. This thesis concentrates on the wind power and their components, also the large wind farm is studied. The electrical power is generated by using the power in wind to drive a wind turbine to produce mechanical power. This mechanical power can be converted into electrical power by using electrical induction generators. There are two types of the wind turbines, the horizontal axis and vertical axis wind turbine, where the horizontal axis wind turbine is mostly used and was studied in this thesis. The rotor can be placed in two directions: an upwind rotor where the blade of turbine faces to the wind, so it operates more smoothly and transmit more power. The other type is a downwind rotor which orients itself with respect for the wind direction. Moreover, the tower shadow makes the blade to flex, consequently resulting in fatigue, noise, and reduces output of the power. The modern wind turbine has been built with an odd number of blades which is important for the stability of the turbine. The rotor with an odd number of blades can be considered to be similar to a disc when calculating the dynamic properties of the machine. The main idea of this thesis is to study the wind power in general and large wind parks specifically. The Horns Rev wind park was taken as an example of a wind park in Denmark and the Gotland wind park as an example of a wind park in Sweden too. Into account, the distance between wind turbine in the wind direction cannot be too small. If the wind turbines are located to close to each other, the wind will be more and more turbulent after it passes through each single wind turbine. This would lead to that wind turbines downstream in the wind park, and it might even have to shut down due to that mechanical loading gets to high during strong conditions. This is due to the fact that when wind passes through the rotor of the wind turbine it gets very turbulent and the wind speed is decreased. The minimum length of the rotor should be approximately 5-7 rotor diameters to avoid that issue. Gotland Energy AB (GEAB) considered, that high voltage direct current light would be the only realistic way to solve the technical problems for the high amount of wind power in-feed. One result is that The stability of voltage during transient events, has become much better by using the high voltage direct current light so that the output current stability from the asynchronous generators have been improved, which reduces the stresses on the AC grid and on the mechanical construction of the windmills. / In general the wind turbines with three blades accommodated a thicker root are used. It is obvious that, the less number of blades on the wind turbine, the cost of material and manufacturing will be lower. It is worthy to mentioned that, the modern wind turbine has been built with an odd number of blades. When the length of the blade increases the deflection of blade tip due to axial wind force also increase as well. So without consider the increase in length of blade may lead to dangerous situation of collision of tower and blade. Moreover, by increasing the number of blades cost of the system would increased as well. The limit of transfer for the AC transmission system depends on the distance from shore and is therefore physically limited by this. AC large wind parks that are placed at a long distance from the shore, which means AC long transmission line, and more drop voltage A solution to AC long transmission line, it could be to decrease the offshore frequency and use a low frequency AC networks. There is a suggestion by for instance (Schütte, Gustavsson and Ström 2011). The usages of a low frequency system are in electrified railway systems, where the frequency ranges from 16.67 Hz to 25 Hz. However, the network of a low frequency would allow a simpler design of the offshore WTs and The aerodynamic rotor of a large WT operates at maximum revolutions at 15-20 rpm. The lower frequency would then allow a smaller gear ratio for turbines with a gearbox, or decrease the poles number for WTs with direct driven generators. This would lead to lighter and cheaper turbines. One of the disadvantages by using a low frequency system is the size of transformer would be increased, and hence, the costs of transformer will increased too. The operator of the grid, Gotland Energy AB (GEAB) considered, that HVDC light would be the only realistic way to solve the technical problems for the high amount of wind power in-feed. The experiences have supported expected improvements in the characteristics for example: - Stability in the system arose. - Reactive demands, power flows, as well as voltage level in the harmonic and system were reduced. - Flicker problems were eliminated with the installation of HVDC light and transient phenomena disappeared. Moreover, Overall experiences of Gotland Energy AB (GEAB) are that the control of power flow from the converters makes the AC grid easier to observe than a conventional AC network and the power variations do not stress the AC grid as much as in normal network. Voltage quality has been better with the increased wind power production. A topic to study in the future is the consequences of blackouts in power supply with many wind power farm. / 004676396018