Operating costs Print E-mail
A wind turbine is an operating asset which needs continuous service and maintenance. Most manufacturers today offer so called full-service agreements, which guarantee that the wind turbine is available for the wind in e.g. 95 – 97 % of the time. All costs for service, maintenance and repair necessary to achieve the availability guaranteed are then for the manufacturer’s expense. As an investor you then eliminate the uncertainty of encountering unexpected repair or replacements for the duration of the full-service agreement. Obviously, the price for the full-service agreement is higher than for a basic service agreement, where the manufacturer repairs the turbines for the owner’s expense.

Unless you are a professional investor, who wants to speculate in taking the risk of having a cheap service agreement, and who has enough space in their private economy to inject the necessary capital in case of larger repairs or replacements, we would always recommend entering into a full-service agreement with the manufacturer. By doing that as “non-professional” investor you buy into a higher certainty that the actual operation of the turbine will be as projected in the budget. In other words, a full-service agreement helps you sleep better at night.

The various full-service agreements are called e.g. Vestas Optisafe, Enercon Partner Konzept, Nordex Premium Service, REpower ISP+ etc.

If you review a budget for a wind turbine investment, and the broker or seller has not included costs for a full-service agreement, then the budget should – in addition to costs for the service agreement and ordinary repair and maintenance – always include provisions for larger repair or replacements. If this is not the case, then the budget will be unrealistic and will materially negatively influenced, if a gear box, generator or the like has to be repaired or replaced – and that will statistically happen at least once over a 20 year budget period.

In projects with new wind turbines, we always recommend entering into full-service agreements with the manufacturer. In project with existing wind turbines, where it is not possible to enter into a full-service agreement, we always include provisions in our budget in accordance with the recommendations from the Danish Wind Turbine Owners Association.

You can read more about service and maintenance of wind turbines by following this link www.dkvind.dk/fakta/pdf/T2.pdf(in Danish).