Report Highlights Advancements in Wind Technology & Supply Chains

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Although 2023 was a comparatively sluggish 12 months for brand new wind energy deployment in the USA, the business continues to see development, stable efficiency, increasing provide chains, and enticing costs, in response to a report ready for the U.S. Division of Vitality (DOE) by Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

With energy gross sales costs starting from lower than $20 to greater than $40 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for newly constructed initiatives, the price of wind is nicely under its grid-system, well being, and local weather worth. “Wind energy prices — particularly in the central United States — remain attractive even as they have drifted higher in recent years,” mentioned Ryan Wisera senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area. “Considering the health and climate benefits of wind energy makes the economics even better,” he added.

Key findings from the annual Land-Based Wind Market Report embody:

• Wind includes a major share of electrical energy provide. U.S. wind energy deployment was comparatively low in 2023, totaling 6.5 gigawatts (GW) and representing $10.8 billion in funding. But wind power contributed 10% of the nation’s electrical energy provide, and as a lot as 37% within the Southwest Energy Pool. A complete of 150 GW of wind was put in in the USA on the finish of 2023. A record-high 366 GW of wind is in search of transmission interconnection.

• Wind generators proceed to get bigger, increasing the marketplace for wind power. Improved plant efficiency over the past a long time has been pushed by bigger generators mounted on taller towers and that includes longer blades. In 2013, no generators employed rotors that had been 115 meters in diameter or bigger, whereas 98% of newly put in generators featured such rotors in 2023.

• Wind power costs have risen however stay enticing for purchasers. Wind energy buy settlement costs have been drifting increased since about 2018, with a latest vary from lower than $20 per MWh to greater than $40 per MWh relying on area and different particulars. These costs, that are potential partially attributable to federal tax help, are just like latest photo voltaic gross sales costs and to the projected future gas prices of gas-fired technology.

• Wind’s worth proposition contains grid and societal advantages. The worth of wind in wholesale energy markets is affected by the placement of wind vegetation, their hourly output profiles, and the way these traits correlate with real-time electrical energy costs and capability markets. The market worth of wind declined in 2023, following a drop within the worth of pure fuel. Wind additionally reduces power-sector emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide. These reductions, in flip, present public well being and local weather advantages which can be bigger than wind’s grid-system worth. The mix of all three values ($183 per MWh) considerably exceeded the levelized price of wind power in 2023.

• The Inflation Discount Act has created renewed optimism for provide chain enlargement. Home manufacturing of towers and nacelles was sturdy in 2023, whereas blade manufacturing has begun to rise after a number of years of decline. The Inflation Discount Act comprises, for the primary time, production-based tax credit for home manufacturing of key wind parts like nacelles, towers, and blades; it additionally prolonged the tax credit score for wind deployment, inclusive of a ten% bonus for initiatives that meet home content material necessities. Consequently, there have been not less than 15 bulletins of producing amenities that plan to open, re-open, or develop to serve the land-based wind business.

• Vitality analysts venture a resurgence of wind deployment within the years forward. With a long-term extension of tax credit for wind power together with alternatives for wind vegetation to earn two 10% bonus credit, analysts count on 2023 to be the low-point for wind deployment. Forecasts for wind deployment develop to a mean over 15 GW per 12 months from 2026 by way of 2028.

Berkeley Lab’s contributions to this report had been funded by the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Wind Vitality Applied sciences Workplace.

Further Data:

The total Land-Based mostly Wind Market Report: 2024 Version, a presentation slide deck that summarizes the report, a number of interactive information visualizations, and an Excel workbook that comprises the information offered within the report, could be downloaded from windreport.lbl.gov. Companion stories on offshore wind and distributed wind are additionally accessible from the Division of Vitality.

The U.S. Division of Vitality’s launch on this examine is offered at https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/wind-energy-market-reports.

Courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).