DOE Report: Wind Energy Could Produce 20% of U.S. Electricity by 2030

May 21, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a report that examines the technical feasibility of harnessing wind power to provide up to 20% of total U.S. electricity needs by 2030.

20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply identifies requirements for achieving this goal including reducing the cost of wind technologies, siting new transmission infrastructure and enhancing domestic manufacturing capability.

According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the report finds that achieving a 20% wind contribution to U.S. electricity supply would:

• Reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation by 25% in 2030.
• Reduce natural gas use by 11%.
• Reduce water consumption associated with electricity generation by 4 trillion gallons by 2030.
• Increase annual revenues to local communities to more than $1.5B by 2030.
• Support roughly 500,000 jobs in the U.S., with an average of more than 150,000 workers directly employed by the wind industry.

The report identifies opportunities for 7.6 cumulative gigatons of CO2 to be avoided by 2030, saving 825 million metric tons in 2030 and every year thereafter if wind energy achieves 20% of the U.S. electricity mix. Reducing the use of natural gas could save money for consumers due to the resulting downward pressure on the price of natural gas, said AWEA.

Prepared by the DOE and stakeholders across industry, government and three DOE national laboratories - the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory - the report presents an in-depth analysis of the potential for wind in the U.S. and outlines a potential scenario to boost wind electric generation from its current production of 16.8 gigawatts (GW) to 304 GW by 2030.

Installations of new wind power capacity would increase to more than 16,000 megawatts (MW) per year by 2018, and continue at that rate through 2030.

For its technical report, DOE drew on the expertise of AWEA and Black and Veatch engineering consultants, plus more than fifty energy organizations and corporations.

The analysis concludes that reaching 20% wind energy will require enhanced transmission infrastructure, streamlined siting and permitting regimes, improved reliability and operability of wind systems and increased U.S. wind manufacturing capacity.

Highlights of the report include:

• Annual installations need to increase more than threefold. Achieving 20% wind will require the number of annual turbine installations to increase from approximately 2000 in 2006 to almost 7000 in 2017.
• Costs of integrating intermittent wind power into the grid are modest. 20% wind can be reliably integrated into the grid for less than 0.5 cents per kilowatt hour.
• No material constraints currently exist. Although demand for copper, fiberglass and other raw materials will increase, achieving 20% wind is not limited by the availability of raw materials.
• Transmission challenges need to be addressed. Issues related to siting and cost allocation of new transmission lines to access the best U.S. wind resources will need to be resolved in order to achieve 20% wind.

"The report correctly highlights that greater penetration of renewable sources of energy - such as wind - into our electric grid will have to be paired with not only advanced integration technologies but also new transmission," DOE Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Kevin Kolevar said.

"In many cases, the most robust sources of renewable resources are located in remote areas, and if we want to be able to deliver these new clean and abundant sources of energy to population centers, we will need additional transmission."

According to DOE, the U.S. is leading the world in new wind installations and has the potential to be the world leader in total wind capacity by 2010. In 2007, U.S. cumulative wind energy capacity reached 16,818 MW - with more than 5,000 MW of wind installed in 2007.

Wind contributed to more than 30% of the new U.S. generation capacity in 2007, making it the second largest source of new power generation in the nation, surpassed only by natural gas. The U.S. wind energy industry invested approximately $9B in new generating capacity in 2007 and has experienced a 30% annual growth rate in the last five years.

According to an AWEA report, the U.S. wind energy industry continued new installations at a breakneck pace in the first quarter of 2008, putting 1,400 MW or approximately $3B worth of new generating capacity in place - enough to serve the equivalent of 400,000 homes - coupled with investment in 17 new manufacturing facilities over the past year.

"The report shows that wind power can provide 20% of the nation's electricity by 2030, and be a critical part of the solution to global warming," said AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher.

"This level of wind power is the equivalent of taking 140 million cars off the road," he said. "The report identifies the central constraints to achieving 20% - transmission, siting, manufacturing and technology - and demonstrates how each can be overcome. As an inexhaustible domestic resource, wind strengthens our energy security, improves the quality of the air we breathe, slows climate change, and revitalizes rural communities."

To download 20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply visit www.20percentwind.org.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).