Evaluation tool for large scale onshore wind power projects

Sammanfattning: Sweden has a goal of having 100% renewable electricity production by 2040. To reach this goal, wind power is one of the most important energy sources that needs to be heavily expanded. However, finding a good project site and realizing a project is a process that takes several years and can be difficult to achieve. Between 2015 and 2018, no less than 76% of Swedish wind power projects applying for permits were rejected. As an industry player with the aim of becoming fossil free, Pöyry has the interest to pursue Sweden reaching its goal. Pöyry has long experience of wind energy development and has now requested a method that can evaluate and compare Swedish wind power projects in all stages with the aim of identifying the best available project to proceed with. The objective of this thesis is thus to investigate factors that are critical for developing profitable projects, identify the largest expenses and create a tool that evaluates projects based on several parameters. A literature review is performed to obtain knowledge about wind power project development and data is collected from various projects in Sweden from 2016 and onwards to get an updated view with information and valuable numbers from realized projects. An analysis is then carried out with the aim of finding the most important factors that can affect the development of wind power projects, positively or negatively. This is followed by an identification of the most significant expenses in a project, whereupon a simplified but realistic way of calculating these are created. Lastly an evaluation tool is developed using Excel, with the purpose of evaluating projects, finding risks and estimating costs as well as electric energy production. Finally, candidate projects can be compared, helping developers finding the most beneficial and environmentally friendly projects.