The 15-year operational experiences of an 850 kW peri-urban wind turbine: Lessons learned from a behind-the-meter installation in Ireland

As wind energy continues to expand in the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy based economies, new markets are expected in behind-the-meter distributed wind applications that are consumer owned. Unlike at tra-ditional wind farms, medium-and large-scale wind turbines deployed in distributed wind applications are more likely to be located near denser populated areas have more complex wind regimes. This can bring additional chal-lenges with respect to wind turbine siting, energy performance, operational life longevity, utility electricity billing and general public acceptance. This research case study outlines the real-world experiences over a fifteen-year timeframe of an operating 850 kW wind turbine, connected behind-the-meter, in the peri-urban environment of a university campus. Experiences and lessons learned from the project development, energy performance, op-eration and maintenance, economics and social benefits are detailed, including recommendations to future pro-spective behind-the-meter wind projects and future research suggestions in this area. The learnings from this case study may be of benefit to variety of prospective stakeholders, such as end-users, project developers and government agencies, engaged with distributed wind and behind-the-meter wind energy deployment.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of International Energy Initiative. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).