The Distributed Wind Energy Futures Study: A High-Resolution Techno-Economic Analysis of Opportunity for Wind in the Continental United States

As the need for clean energy resources increases, the methods in which clean energy is produced vary in scale, location, and cost leading to disparities in access across communities and geographic regions. Distributed wind technologies offer a solution to these disparities by providing clean energy solutions for individuals, communities, and businesses through installations ranging from less than 1-KW to 10-MW in either front-of-the-meter or behind-the-meter connections. To better understand the economic potential of distributed wind resources, the Department of Energy Wind Energy Technology Office (DOE WETO) funded the Distributed Wind Energy Futures Study (DWEFS). This study builds on the DOE’s prior report “Assessing the Future of Distributed Wind: Opportunities for Behind-the-Meter Projects” (Lantz et al. 2016) by expanding the model to use higher-resolution data and implementing new modeling techniques to provide insights for both behind-the-meter and front-of-the-meter applications. To accomplish this, the DWEFS utilizes the Distributed Wind Market Demand (dWind) model; a Python based model that evaluates the resource, economics, siting, load, and policy conditions for more than 150 million potential distributed wind sites across the continental United States (CONUS). This parcel-by-parcel analysis is a first of its kind and provides an unprecedented view into the opportunity for wind energy generation in the CONUS.

In addition to providing insight on the resource potential of distributed wind technologies, the results of the DWEFS will be integrated into other DOE WETO projects like the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Strategize, Engage, Network, Deploy (SEND) Project’s Distributed Wind Mapping Tool and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) platform. This work will increase awareness of distributed wind resource technology, improve accessibility of the data, and expand the overall understanding of the opportunity for clean energy generation from wind in rural and suburban America.

This presentation will discuss major milestones and on-going work of the study including model updates, new results, open-source efforts, and work with the USDA Rural and Agricultural Income and Savings from Renewable Energy (RAISE) initiative, which provides substantial incentives for deployment of distributed wind turbines on rural and agricultural private land.