Feasibility study of offshore utility-scale wind farms implementation in Tunisia

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our society due to its adverse impact on the earth ecosystem and on the world economy. Improving energy system efficiencies and the massive expansion of renewable energy have become exceedingly important for climate protection. With its 11.7 Mio inhabitants and its positively growing economy Tunisia has started to diversify its energy mix and to devise ambitious renewable energy plans to meet its growing energy demand in the future while contributing to climate protection. Wind energy, as a component of the green transition, has been given a lot of attention since 2000 in Tunisia. Offshore wind power has the potential to play a key role for Tunisia in achieving the future renewable energy targets due to the country's favorable geographic location and coastline. Hence; the purpose of this study, is to investigate the potential of offshore wind energy in Tunisia and study the feasibility of a Utility-scale offshore wind farm in terms of prospecting for favorable sites, energy production, CAPEX (capital expenditures), OPEX (operational expenditures) and LCOE (levelized cost of energy). The case of an offshore windfarm of 30 MW located off the Gulf of Gabes has been studied, the wind potential assessment and power production were determined by simulation using WindPro software, and the capital and operating costs as well as the price of the produced electricity were calculated by modeling the LCOE. Conclusions and recommendations on the feasibility of an offshore wind energy project in Tunisia were presented at the end of the study.