Manufacturing cost - a critical evaluation criteria for new developments in wind turbine drivetrain technologies

Innovation in the wind turbine's drivetrain are mainly motivated by the goal to have better products. To have an improved final product, it should be analysed in a holistic manner over the drivetrains lifetime. One essential lifetime phase of a wind turbines drivetrain is the manufacturing phase, which is focused in this analysis. This paper presents a way to estimate manufacturing cost of wind turbine drivetrains at an early design phase. The approach is based on literature and expert interviews as well as their abstractions. The target audience are people involved in the development of new wind turbine drivetrain concepts. To customize the approach for their requirements, it is based on a minimum number of necessary input mainly geometric component specification. This approach is modular, scalable and applicable on to future drivetrain concepts. The used approach proves to be an effective way for estimating manufacturing costs of drivetrain components. A comparative analysis against a benchmark application, a 5 MW wind turbine's drivetrain, confirms the accuracy of the presented approach. A case study dealing with two possible gearbox solutions with a power rating over 5 MW underlines the importance of taking manufacturing cost in consideration when thinking about new developments in wind turbine drivetrain technology.