The Importance of the Steel Price in Offshore Wind

Abstract

[Abstract] The price of some raw materials has been increased during the last 2 years. Firstly, the COVID pandemic and, secondly, the Ukraine-Russia war, have bringing a lot of economic consequences for the majority of the world's economies. The main purpose of the present paper is to analyse the importance of steel price in offshore wind. In this context, several economic indicators usually considered in energy industry, such as LCOE (levelized cost of energy) will be calculated. The method was carried out for a floating offshore wind farm composed by semisubmersible substructures and located in the main Atlantic Islands of Spain: the Canary Islands. Moreover, several cases of study with different prices of steel have been calculated in order to know the influence of this parameter in the economics of an offshore wind farm. Results of the three cases of study considered the highest economic variations are related to the internal rate of return and LCOE, with values of −7.6% and 5.4% respectively. Therefore, variations on the price of steel during last 3 years has repercussion on decisions about renewable energy, particularly floating offshore wind, where different types of materials for offshore platforms are being tested (steel or concrete, for instance).