Survey Reveals Projections for Lower Wind Energy Costs

[OKIsItJustMe]

(Please note: National Renewable Energy Laboratory material—Copyright concerns are nil.)

http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2016/37738

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Survey Reveals Projections for Lower Wind Energy Costs[/font]

[font size=4]September 13, 2016[/font]

[font size=3]The cost of producing electricity via wind power is expected to fall 24-30 percent by 2030 and 35-41 percent by 2050, according to a survey of the world's foremost wind power experts. Cost reductions are anticipated as a function of continued advancements in wind energy technology.

These findings are detailed in new study published in the journal Nature Energy and conducted by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), researchers at the University of Massachusetts, and participants in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Technology Collaboration Programme Task 26.

Ryan Wiser, a senior scientist at LBNL, is lead author of the study, titled Eliciting Expert Views on Future Wind Energy Costs. NREL's Maureen Hand, Eric Lantz, and Aaron Smith collaborated on the research, helping to develop the survey, recruit participants, and review the results.

The study summarizes a global survey of 163 wind energy experts to gain insight into the possible magnitude of future wind energy cost reductions, the sources of those reductions, and the enabling conditions needed to realize continued innovation and lower costs. Three wind applications were covered: onshore (land-based) wind, fixed-bottom offshore wind, and floating offshore wind.

Under a "best guess" (or median) scenario, experts anticipate 24-30 percent reductions in the levelized cost of energy by 2030 and 35-41 percent reductions by 2050 across the three wind applications studied, relative to 2014 baseline values. In absolute terms, onshore wind is expected to remain less expensive than offshore, at least for typical projects-and fixed-bottom offshore wind less expensive than floating wind plants. However, there are greater absolute reductions (and more uncertainty) in the levelized cost of energy for offshore wind compared with onshore wind and a narrowing gap between fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind.

Costs could be even lower: Experts predict a 10 percent chance that reductions will be more than 40 percent by 2030 and more than 50 percent by 2050. Industry learning with market growth and aggressive R&D are noted as two key factors that might drive toward this "low cost" scenario. At the same time, there is substantial uncertainty in these cost projections, illustrated by the range in expert views and by the "high cost" scenario in which cost reductions are modest or negligible.

Recent years have seen significant reductions in the up-front cost of wind power projects, as well as increases in wind project performance as measured by the capacity factor of wind facilities. Experts anticipate continued improvements in these two overall cost drivers, as well as reduced operating costs, longer turbine lifetimes, and reductions in the cost of finance--with the relative impact of each driver dependent on the wind application in question. To achieve these improvements, experts predict that increasingly larger wind turbines will continue to be deployed.

The survey was conducted under the auspices of the IEA Wind Technology Collaboration Programme (www.ieawind.org) and was funded in part by the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. NREL's contributions to this report were also funded by the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

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[NNadir]

1. It's been "projected" to fall for half a century now, but remains, nonetheless...

...an insignificant form of energy.

More than a trillion bucks into this unfortunate exercise in just ten years, climate change gases are rising faster, not slower.

Without gas, the wind industry is useless.

It's bull anyway. Anytime one needs two systems to do what one system can do, it's pretty damned obvious - or should be obvious in the absence of stupidity and wishful thinking - that the system is unnecessarily expensive.

[kristopher]

2. The nuclear industry is the one that's useless without gas.

From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

Current Issue > vol. 112 no. 49 > Mark Z. Jacobson, 15060–15065
Low-cost solution to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of intermittent wind, water, and solar for all purposes
Mark Z. Jacobson a,1, Mark A. Delucchi b, Mary A. Cameron a, and Bethany A. Frew a
aDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
bInstitute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
Edited by Stephen Polasky, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, and approved November 2, 2015 (received for review May 26, 2015)

Significance
The large-scale conversion to 100% wind, water, and solar (WWS) power for all purposes (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry) is currently inhibited by a fear of grid instability and high cost due to the variability and uncertainty of wind and solar. This paper couples numerical simulation of time- and space-dependent weather with simulation of time-dependent power demand, storage, and demand response to provide low-cost solutions to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of WWS across all energy sectors in the continental United States between 2050 and 2055. Solutions are obtained without higher-cost stationary battery storage by prioritizing storage of heat in soil and water; cold in water and ice; and electricity in phase-change materials, pumped hydro, hydropower, and hydrogen.


Abstract
This study addresses the greatest concern facing the large-scale integration of wind, water, and solar (WWS) into a power grid: the high cost of avoiding load loss caused by WWS variability and uncertainty. It uses a new grid integration model and finds low-cost, no-load-loss, nonunique solutions to this problem on electrification of all US energy sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry) while accounting for wind and solar time series data from a 3D global weather model that simulates extreme events and competition among wind turbines for available kinetic energy. Solutions are obtained by prioritizing storage for heat (in soil and water); cold (in ice and water); and electricity (in phase-change materials, pumped hydro, hydropower, and hydrogen), and using demand response. No natural gas, biofuels, nuclear power, or stationary batteries are needed. The resulting 2050–2055 US electricity social cost for a full system is much less than for fossil fuels. These results hold for many conditions, suggesting that low-cost, reliable 100% WWS systems should work many places worldwide.

1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jacobson{at}stanford.edu.
Author contributions: M.Z.J. designed research; M.Z.J. and M.A.D. performed research; M.Z.J., M.A.D., M.A.C., and B.A.F. contributed analytic tools; M.Z.J., M.A.D., and M.A.C. analyzed data; and M.Z.J., M.A.D., M.A.C., and B.A.F. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

Data available upon request (from M.Z.J.).

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1510028112/-/DCSupplemental.

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15060

As for your nonsensical claims about subsidies:

...Over the past 15 years, federal support for the oil and gas industry has been five times that for renewables, while the stalled-out nuclear industry got ten times as much, according to DBL Investors Managing Partner Nancy Pfund. Her firm joined Ben Healey, a graduate student at Yale University School of Management and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, to write a report (PDF) that found average annual support for the oil and gas industry has been $4.86 billion from 1918 to 2009, compared to $3.5 billion for nuclear from 1947 to 1999 and $0.37 billion for renewable energy between 1994 and 2009.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-real-deal-on-u.s.-subsidies-fossils-72b-renewable-energys-12b


Given the false data you believe to be true, it isn't surprising you love nuclear power.