Economics of Wind turbine as an energy fuel saver – A case study for remote application in oman

This paper presents a study carried out to investigate the economics of wind turbine as an energy fuel saver. The load and the wind data is taken from a remote agricultural research station in Oman. Presently, the station is provided with electricity from diesel-engine generating units. The annual peak load and minimum load recorded at the site is 130kW and 28kW respectively. The annual average wind speed at the site is 5.7m/s. A 50-kW wind turbine is selected to demonstrate the economic feasibility of the turbine as a fuel saver. The results show that wind energy utilization is an attractive option with total specific cost of the selected wind turbine ranges between 7.4 and 8.45¢/kWh at 7.55% discount rate comparing to diesel generation operating cost of 14.3¢/kWh, considering the capital cost of diesel units as sunk. The simple payback period of the turbine is between 5.1 and 5.4 years and discounted payback between 6.7 and 8.0 years.