"...“(Wind turbine) performance is impacted by major breakdowns that deprive power generation until the turbine is repaired.
...Major breakdowns can be expected in the first eight years of operation in about 80 percent of offshore machines and 20 percent of their onshore counterparts, the report says.
However, more significant is performance decline through age-related wear that reduces within 16 years of operation the output of offshore turbines to 50 percent of their peak performance and that of onshore machines to 63 percent.
Quoting Dr. Hughes, the report says, “(W)hen capital costs, economic life and the cost of capital are combined, the overall capital element of the cost of wind generation per (megawatt) of capacity rose substantially during the decade from 2000 to 2010 for both onshore and offshore wind...Read all.
