Substantiating the Use of Wind Power Plants for Power Supply to the Nosok Settlement in the Krasnoyarsk Krai

Abstract

The majority of settlements in the northern regions of the Krasnoyarsk Krai in the Russian Federation use diesel power plants (DPPs) consisting of several diesel gensets (DGS) as a power supply source. At present, increasingly growing attention is paid in Russia to replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources (RES). In this connection, there is a need to assess the technical capabilities and economic feasibility of fully or partially replacing DPPs with wind power plants consisting of one or more wind turbines. The article presents the results from evaluating the technical and economic efficiency of using wind turbines for reducing the power output of the DPP installed in the Nosok settlement located in the Taimyr Dolgan-Nenets municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, which is administratively part of the Karaul rural settlement. The Nosok settlement power supply system uses a 0.7 MW diesel power plant as the power supply source. The annual consumption of electricity in 2020 amounted to 2978.64 MWh, for which 982.9 t of diesel fuel was consumed, which in monetary terms amounted to 73.72 million rubles. Significant material costs are stemming from the use of expensive imported diesel fuel; this results in that the cost of electricity provided by the Taimyrenergoresurs LLC power supply company is 45.6 rubles for 1 kWh. The article considers the option of developing a combined wind and diesel power plant and substantiates the efficiency of using the Enercon E-40/6/44 wind turbine for reducing the diesel fuel consumption for the power supply system operation. The annual amount of electricity generated by the Enercon E-40/6/44 wind turbine in the Nosok settlement of the Krasnoyarsk Krai will make 2142.55 MWh, which is 71.9% of the energy consumption in the Nosok settlement equal to 2978.64 MWh. This will make it possible to reduce the diesel fuel consumption by 707.04 t, and save 53.02 million rubles annually. The use of the above-mentioned wind turbine for supplying power to the Nosok settlement will become an efficient technical measure, because the wind turbine capacity utilization factor is 0.408, which points to a good effect from using this wind turbine. Owing to the money earned from saving diesel fuel, the Enercon E-40/6/44 wind turbine payback period will not be more than 1.55 years, which should be quite attractive to investors. After expiration of the payback period, it will be possible to obtain electricity from the Enercon E-40/6/44 wind turbine at a cost of 4.03 rubles for 1 kWh.