# Systems engineering

When you look at Moné’s [1] definition for the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE),

$LCoE = \frac{\left( CapEx \cdot FCR \right) + OpEx}{AEP_{net} }$

with:

$$LCoE$$
levelized cost of energy $$\left[ \frac{ \text{€} }{ \text{kWh} } \right]$$
$$CapEx$$
capital expenditures $$\left[ \frac{ \text{€} }{ \text{kW} } \right]$$
$$FCR$$
fixed charge rate [%] (a financial term, not further discussed here).
$$OpEx$$
annual operational expenditures $$\left[ \frac{ \text{€} }{ \text{kW} \cdot \text{yr} } \right]$$
$$AEP_{net}$$
net annual energy production $$\left[ \frac{ \text{kWh} }{ \text{kW} \cdot \text{yr} } \right]$$

you see that it contains four terms. Three of them depend on engineering:

• The $$CapEx$$ is directly linked to the cost of your product,
• The $$OpEx$$ to your product’s reliability
• and the $$AEP_{net}$$ to performance.

These three aspects are representing the Cost, Performance & Reliability of functions linking sales to designed wind turbine components. The way to manage these aspects throughout the product life-cycle is by deploying Systems Engineering to Product Life-cycle Management (PLM).

We provide support, guidance and on-the-job training to wind turbine OEM by using various Systems Engineering methods.