What economic support is needed for Arctic offshore wind power?

Wind power is increasingly being installed in cold climates and in offshore locations. It is generally recognised that installing wind power to offshore locations is more expensive than onshore. The additional challenges from Arctic conditions with annual sea icing are still poorly known. We reviewed the existing knowledge of offshore wind power costs and developed a calculation model for the economics of offshore wind turbines in Finland, including taxes and sea base rent, to obtain a base case for determining the required tariff support. The model was tested with different production and cost rates to obtain a tariff price, which would make offshore wind power on Finnish territory economically viable for the producer. The main developers of planned offshore projects in Finland were interviewed to obtain a comparison between the created model and industry expectations. The cost of erected turbines was estimated to be 2750 (sic)/kW. With this cost of capacity, it was clear that a higher than the current tariff price (83.5 (sic)/MWh) will be required for offshore developments. Our analysis indicated a price level of about 115 (sic)/MWh to be required. We found that even rather small changes in cost or production rates may lead to excess profits or economic losses and further research and pilot projects are required to define a more reliable tariff level. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.