Computer program for estimating the efficiency of solar- and wind power plant investments

Abstract

The efficiency of the exploitation of renewable energy sources like solar radiation and wind energy depends on economic factors as well as on the availability of the corresponding natural resource. The efficiency of a solar power plant investment will naturally depend on the local value of global insolation, whereas the efficiency of a wind farm investment depends first of all on the yearly average of wind speed measured at the height of the wind turbine’s hub. Therefore, the efficiency of a solar- or wind power plant will in general also depend on the power plant’s geographical location. In order to estimate the investment efficiency of solar- and wind power plant investments as a function of geographical location as well as various technical parameters and economic factors, we have worked out a corresponding economic model, and — by using Delphi 7.0 environment under Windows XP OS — developed a computer program that is able to calculate and visualize the investment efficiency map of various solar- and wind power plant investments. We have applied the program for the case of Hungary by using the maps displaying the yearly global insolation and the wind speed at 70 m above ground level for the area of Hungary.