Commercial feasibility study of a small-scale wind turbine manufacturing in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Increased energy demand, price of energy carriers and the threat of climate change phenomena over the whole world have already had negative effects on the world's economy. Different strategies were adopted to address these problems. Among those, renewable energy sources have received substantial attention over the past 40 years. As a result various manufacturers all over the world started producing devices for capturing renewable energy and convert it to electricity for industry or household use.Currently wind energy plays a fair share in electricity production around the world. However till recently small-scale wind energy generation hadn't received as much attention as the commercial wind turbines. The number of manufacturers of small-scale wind turbines is growing in the last few years and only 5 countries account for 50% of the production of small-scale wind turbines, none of which is located in the Africa. Although the African continent and specifically South Africa is considered ideal places for harvesting wind energy, the growth of small-scale wind turbines has been disappointing. Therefore, the financial feasibility as well as the risk of investment in such industries in South Africa were unknown.In this study the financial feasibility of manufacturing small-scale wind turbines in South Africa is investigated. Initially a market study is performed identifying the target market, international and domestic competitors, target market share and the market growth in a 5 year forecast. Factors that affect the market are discussed. Having the market study and the market demand estimation the technical and financial @Risk model is developed by gathering information regarding the manufacturing methods, required raw material, machinery and equipment, required human resources and administrative section's requirements. Having the model, 4 scenarios are defined and the model is run for each of the scenarios.In the first scenario the production range is considered as the first 10 percentile of the potential target market demand defined in the market study section, 10 to 30 percentile is used for the second scenario and 30 to 50 percentile for the third scenario. The model outputs relating to these inputs are investigated and discussed. A breakeven analysis is performed for the three scenarios and the scenarios are compared by the defined metrics such as Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Modified Internal Rate of Return (MIRR) and Net Present Value (NPV).In the fourth scenario the condition that the wind turbine has to compete on sales price with photovoltaic (PV) cells, is investigated. Therefore the sales price is set to the same price as the PV panels in the market and breakeven analyses as well as the mentioned metrics are investigated.The model gives an indication that it is financially feasible to manufacture small-scale wind turbines in South Africa by considering all the various outputs of the model. In addition the comparison of the first three scenarios shows that the second scenario has preferable results due to a moderate initial production volume for the first year of the entry into the market. This seems to be a rational decision for such product that is very dependent on external factors as well as the declining growth rate of the MIRR when the production volume increases, that you should not over-capitalize.In the fourth scenario it is shown that by having the sales price the same as that of PV panels, the change required in sales is 27% more than for the breakeven point of the first three scenarios.For future work, small-scale renewable hybrid systems, as well as more economical manufacturing methods for Africa could be considered.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University