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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Expert elicitation survey predicts 37% to 49% declines in wind energy costs by 2050

Wind energy has experienced accelerated cost reduction over the past five years—far greater than predicted in a 2015 expert elicitation. Here we report results from a new survey on wind costs, compare those with previous results and discuss the accuracy of the earlier predictions. In this work, we show that experts in 2020 expect future onshore and offshore wind costs to decline 37–49% by 2050, resulting in costs 50% lower than predicted in 2015. This is due to cost reductions witnessed over the past five years and expected continued advancements. If realized, these costs might allow wind to play a larger role in energy supply than previously anticipated. Considering both surveys, we also conclude that there is considerable uncertainty about future costs. Our results illustrate the importance of considering cost uncertainty, highlight the value and limits of using experts to reveal those uncertainties, and yield possible lessons for energy modellers and expert elicitation.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Wind Energy Costs in Puerto Rico Through 2035

In 2019, Puerto Rico codified into law a 100% renewable electricity by 2050 target. Decision makers there need information about the costs and performance of wind energy technologies to incorporate into planning efforts for the future grid. After consulting with key technical stakeholders and accounting for unique conditions in Puerto Rico like increased hurricane risks, we customize NREL's Renewable Energy Potential model to calculate how capital expenditures, operational expenditures, net annual energy generation, and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) vary in time and space for wind energy projects around Puerto Rico. Wind turbines can add value by providing grid services through grid-forming inverters and complement solar energy generation with evening and nighttime electricity production, especially offshore. By 2035, we expect average costs of land-based and offshore wind energy in Puerto Rico to reach $\$$69/MWh (6.9 cents/kWh) and $\$$100/MWh (10 cents/kWh), respectively. While these projections do not include transmission system upgrade costs, they do suggest that low-cost, clean electricity is possible for Puerto Rico.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Assess Floating Offshore Wind Energy Costs and Performance - FLOWIN Voucher: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-23-23792

In support of the FLOWIN Phase One Winner Voucher Utilization, NREL will assist with assessing floating offshore wind energy installation logistics and costs for several sites using the floating substructure design developed by the University of Maine. This will help inform understanding of floating offshore wind energy technology cost drivers.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Control co-design of 13 MW downwind two-bladed rotors to achieve 25% reduction in levelized cost of wind energy

Wind energy is recognized worldwide as cost-effective and environmentally friendly and is among the fastest-growing sources of electrical energy. To further decrease the cost of wind energy, wind turbines are being designed at ever larger scales, which is challenging due to greater structural loads and deflections. Large-scale systems such as modern wind turbines increasingly require a control co-design approach, whereby the system design and control design are performed in a more integrated fashion. We overview a two-bladed downwind morphing rotor concept that is expected to lower the cost of energy at wind turbine sizes beyond 13 megawatts (MW) compared with continued upscaling of traditional three-bladed upwind rotor designs. We describe an aero-structural-control co-design process that we have used in designing such extreme-scale wind turbines, and we discuss how we were able to achieve a 25% reduction in levelized cost of energy for our final turbine design compared to a conventional upwind three-bladed rotor design.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

2022 Cost of Wind Energy Review [Slides]

The 12th annual Cost of Wind Energy Review, now presented in slide deck format, uses representative utility-scale and distributed wind energy projects to estimate the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for land-based and offshore wind power plants in the United States.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Systematic Framework for Projecting the Future Cost of Offshore Wind Energy

Offshore wind costs are expected to decline rapidly in the short and medium term future as the industry grows and gains experience in manufacturing, installing, and operating commercial scale projects. Estimating the future costs of offshore wind energy is critical for evaluating the technology's economic performance, how it can fit into a broader clean energy economy, and how R&D investment can be allocated to advance the technology. We present a newly developed approach for forecasting these costs which focuses on an empirically-derived learning rate for capital costs and prescribed cost and performance improvements for operational costs and capacity factor. We establish baseline costs for a series of reference fixed-bottom and floating projects in 2021 and project cost trajectories to 2035, presenting both an average cost trajectory as well as describing the range of potential future costs associated with site-specific cost variations and uncertainty in the estimate of the learning rate. We also conduct sensitivity analyses showing the impact of different global deployments by 2035 and variations in the prescribed operational costs and capacity factors. The results show that fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind capital costs could decrease to around $\$$2,400/kW and $\$$3,300/kW by 2035, respectively, with ranges of $\$$2,100/kW - $\$$2,750/kW for fixed-bottom projects and $\$$2,850/kW - $\$$5,500/kW for floating projects. The levelized cost of energy of fixed-bottom and floating wind projects could decrease to $\$$53.1/MWh and $\$$63.9/MWh by 2035, with ranges of $\$$48.4/MWh - $\$$59.7/MWh for fixed-bottom projects and $\$$46.5/MWh - $\$$99.9/MWh for floating projects. By presenting the uncertainty associated with the forecast we provide a transparent description of the spectrum of potential cost trajectories for offshore wind.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

2021 Cost of Wind Energy Review [Slides]

This analysis uses representative utility-scale and distributed wind energy projects to estimate the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for land-based, offshore, and distributed wind power in the United States. Data and results detailed here are derived from 2021 commissioned plants and representative industry data as well as state-of-the-art modeling capabilities. Modeling is conducted to provide more granular detail on specific cost categories. This study represents the 11th annual installment and is intended to provide insight into current component-level costs as well as a basis for understanding variability in wind energy LCOE across the country.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

2019 Cost of Wind Energy Review

This report uses representative utility-scale and distributed wind energy projects to estimate the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for land-based and offshore wind power plants in the United States. Data and results detailed here are derived from 2019 commissioned plants and representative industry data as well as state-of-the-art modeling capabilities. Modeling is conducted to provide more granular detail on specific cost categories. This report represents the ninth annual installment and is intended to provide insight into current component-level costs as well as a basis for understanding variability in wind energy LCOE across the country.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Future Wind Energy Resources and Cost Uncertainties Across the United States

This dataset contains results estimating projections of change of annual capacity factors and levelized cost of energy for several turbine technologies in the 2024 Annual Technology Baseline (ATB). Projections of change are based on downscaled earth system model (ESM) data from Sup3rCC. There has been evidence of reductions in average wind speeds over land in North America since the 1980s, and several models project that average wind speeds will continue to decrease. Concurrently, the cost of wind energy systems in the United States has been decreasing since around 2010, a trend also projected to continue. There is considerable uncertainty in these future projections, with quantitative estimates of future wind resource and system costs varying widely. To study this, we run land-based wind energy models with a range of possible future system costs, turbine designs, and meteorological inputs from multiple downscaled earth system models over the contiguous United States to estimate critical system performance metrics such as annual energy production (AEP) and levelized cost of energy. Where multiple earth system models agree, changes in mean AEP from the time period 2000-2019 to 2040-2059 can be as high as +10% in South Texas or as low as -20% in Iowa. Several additional states in the Midwest that currently have considerable wind generation capacity show the possibility of substantial decreases in AEP by mid-century. Larger turbines and moderate reductions in system costs can offset even the largest projected decreases in wind resource, but much uncertainty remains in the extent to which wind resources will actually change into the future and to what extent wind energy systems can drive down future costs. An analysis of variance shows, in several states in the Midwest, the uncertainty in future wind resource can be almost as important for future changes in the cost of wind energy as the uncertainty in future system costs.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Updated Oregon Floating Offshore Wind Cost Modeling [Slides]

The study provides heat maps showing updated estimates of the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for floating offshore wind energy off the coast of Oregon. This project builds on a 2019 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) floating offshore wind power cost study in Oregon (Musial et al. 2019) and a recent NREL California cost analysis (Beiter et al. 2020). Floating wind power cost data, modeling methodology, and resource data are updated and LCOE is estimated through 2032 using 2019 as a reference year. Comparisons are made to the previous offshore wind energy cost studies (Musial et al. 2019; Beiter et al. 2020). The study does not prioritize specific sites or make judgments about marine spatial planning viability.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

2020 Cost of Wind Energy Review

This report uses representative utility-scale and distributed wind energy projects to estimate the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for land-based and offshore wind power plants in the United States. Data and results detailed here are derived from 2020 commissioned plants and representative industry data as well as state-of-the-art modeling capabilities. Modeling is conducted to provide more granular detail on specific cost categories. This report represents the tenth annual installment and is intended to provide insight into current component-level costs as well as a basis for understanding variability in wind energy LCOE across the country.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cost of Wind Energy Review: 2024 Edition [Slides]

The primary elements of this analysis include: Estimated LCOE for (1) a representative land-based wind energy project installed in a moderate wind resource in the United States, (2) a representative fixed-bottom offshore wind energy project installed in the U.S. North Atlantic, and (3) a representative floating offshore wind energy project installed off the U.S. Pacific Coast. It also updates the LCOE estimates for representative residential-, commercial-, and large-scale distributed wind projects installed in a moderate wind resource in the United States. A sensitivity analyses is included that shows the range of effects that basic LCOE variables could have on the cost of wind energy for land-based and offshore wind projects and provides updated Fiscal Year 2024 values for land-based and offshore wind energy used for Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) reporting and illustrated progress toward established GPRA targets.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

2020 System Optimization Awardee: Pecos Wind Power

With support from the Competitiveness Improvement Project's System Optimization Award, Pecos Wind Power will help lower the cost of distributed wind technology and expand deployment. To do so, the company will optimize their PW85 distributed wind turbine to achieve a production levelized cost of energy of $0.099 per kilowatt hour, which is a 48% cost reduction in distributed wind energy costs. This reduction is a critical step toward Pecos Wind Power's ultimate target of $0.089 per kilowatt-hour. This fact sheet provides an overview of Pecos Wind Power's project, how the company will achieve the goals of the award, and how the project fits within the overall Competitiveness Improvement Project.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2026

An Analysis of Future Wind Energy Resources and Cost Uncertainties Across the United States

Wind power is a growing source of energy generation that relies on complex global atmospheric and earth system processes. There has been evidence of reductions in average wind speeds over land in North America since the 1980s, and several models project that average wind speeds will continue to decrease. Concurrently, the cost of wind energy systems in the United States has been decreasing since around 2010, a trend also projected to continue. There is considerable uncertainty in these future projections, with quantitative estimates of future wind resource and system costs varying widely. To study this, we run wind energy models with possible future system costs, turbine designs, and meteorological inputs from multiple downscaled earth system models over the contiguous United States. Changes in mean annual energy production from 2000-2019 to 2040-2059 can be as high as +10% in South Texas or as low as -20% in Iowa. Larger turbines and moderate reductions in system costs can offset the largest projected decreases in wind resource, but much uncertainty remains in the extent to which wind resources will change and to what extent system costs can be reduced. An analysis of variance shows, in several states in the Midwest, uncertainty in future wind resources can influence the cost of wind energy nearly as much as uncertainty in future system costs.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

AWAKEN

The American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) is a landmark collaborative international wake observation and validation campaign. Wake interactions are among the least understood and most impactful physical interactions in wind plants today, leading to unexpected power losses and increased operations and maintenance costs. The AWAKEN campaign is designed to gather observational data to address the most pressing science questions about wind turbine wake interactions and aerodynamics and to further understand wake behavior and validate wind plant models. Simultaneously, the AWAKEN campaign will also focus on testing of wind farm control strategies that have been shown to increase wind plant power production. Leveraging the expertise and resources of a large body of National Laboratories, academic institutions, and industry partners will lead to improved wind farm layout with greater power production and improved reliability, ultimately leading to lower wind energy costs.

17 WIND ENERGY↗