A Feasibility Study to Develop Local and Regional Use of Wind Energy on the Kola Peninsula, Murmansk Region, Russia

• Main Authors: Gerhard J. Gerdes Dewi, Jonas Wolff
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Barents Sea; Kola Peninsula; Murmansk; kola peninsula; Murmansk Oblast; North-Western Russia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.545.5800; http://www.dewi.de/dewi/fileadmin/pdf/publications/Magazin_13/06.pdf

The possibilities for wind energy production on the Kola peninsula in north-western Russia were studied in an extensive feasibility study. The Kola peninsula constitutes the Murmansk oblast, i.e. a region with some autonomous features, within the Russian federation. The wind resources in the region are very good, with annual mean speeds up to 10 m/s on the coast of the Barents Sea. A wind atlas is produced according to the methodology developed at Risø National Laboratories in Denmark and makes it possible to do reliable wind resource as-sessments and production estimates at prospective sites. There are more than 30 civil and military settlements located off the common electrical network. In these settlements electricity needs are currently supplied mostly by autonomous diesel power stations. Due to long distances and difficult access transport of fuel is costly and thus power prices are high. In these communities wind turbines could provide both additional energy supply and fuel savings at competitive costs. The peninsula is powered mainly by nuclear and hydro power stations and there is for the mo-ment no scarcity of power in the electrical network. Power consumption was as high as 17 TWh in 1989 but has decreased to 13–14 TWh in the mid 90's. However, the oldest nuclear reactors