(Press-News.org) Facing looming policy uncertainty beyond 2012, the U.S. remained one of the fastest-growing wind power markets in the world in 2011—second only to China—according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Roughly 6.8 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity were connected to the U.S. grid in 2011—more than the 5.2 GW built in 2010, but below the 10 GW added in 2009. Driven by the threat of expiring federal incentives, new wind power installations are widely expected to be substantially higher in 2012 than in 2011, and perhaps even in excess of 2009's record build.
Other key findings from the U.S. Department of Energy's "2011 Wind Technologies Market Report" include:
Wind is a credible source of new generation in the U.S. Wind power comprised 32% of all new U.S. electric capacity additions in 2011 and represented $14 billion in new investment. Wind power currently contributes more than 10% of total electricity generation in six states (with two of these states above 20%), and now provides more than 3% of total U.S. electricity supply.
In spite of the lack of policy clarity, wind turbine manufacturers and their suppliers continued to localize production domestically in 2011. As a result, a growing percentage of the equipment used in U.S. wind power projects is being sourced domestically: 67% in 2011, up from just 35% back in 2005-2006. However, Ryan Wiser, a Staff Scientist at Berkeley Lab and co-author of the report, notes, "behind these positive headline numbers, the domestic wind industry supply chain is currently facing severe pressure, due to uncertain prospects after 2012." Specifically, profit margins have been declining and concerns about manufacturing overcapacity have deepened, potentially setting the stage for significant layoffs if demand for turbines (for post-2012 delivery) does not pick up.
Turbine scaling has boosted wind project capacity factors. Since 1998-99, the average nameplate capacity of wind turbines installed in the U.S. has increased by 174% (to 1.97 MW in 2011), the average turbine hub height has increased by 45% (to 81 meters), and the average rotor diameter has increased by 86% (to 89 meters). This substantial scaling has pushed average capacity factors among new wind projects higher over time, though the increase has been mitigated in recent year by significant curtailment of wind energy output in some regions, along with a trend towards wind developers building out lower wind speed sites.
Falling wind turbine prices have begun to push installed project costs lower. Wind turbine prices have fallen 20 to 30% from their highs back in 2008, but this decline has been slow to show up in installed project cost data, which only began to turn the corner (on average) in 2011. Data from a preliminary sample of wind power projects being built in 2012 suggest further reductions in installed project costs.
Lower wind turbine prices and installed project costs, along with improved capacity factors, are enabling aggressive wind power pricing. Grouping projects according to the year in which they signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) makes it clear that wind power pricing peaked among those projects that executed contracts in 2009 and has fallen substantially since. Among a sample of wind power projects with contracts signed in 2011, the capacity-weighted average levelized price is $35/MWh, down from $59/MWh for projects with contracts signed in 2010, and $72/MWh for projects with contracts signed back in 2009.
"Wind PPA prices—particularly in the central U.S.—are now approaching previous lows set back in 2003," notes Berkeley Lab Research Scientist and report co-author Mark Bolinger. "But even with today's much lower wind energy prices, wind power still struggles to compete with depressed natural gas and wholesale power prices in many parts of the country."
Looking ahead, projections are for continued strong growth in 2012, followed by dramatically lower but uncertain additions in 2013. With key federal incentives for wind energy (including bonus depreciation and a choice of the production tax credit, investment tax credit, or Section 1603 Treasury cash grant) currently slated to expire at the end of 2012, new capacity additions in 2012 are anticipated to substantially exceed 2011 levels—and perhaps even the record high set in 2009—as developers rush to commission projects.
At the same time, the possible expiration of these incentives at the end of 2012, in concert with continued low natural gas prices, modest electricity demand growth, and existing state policies that are not sufficient to support continued capacity additions at the levels witnessed in recent years, threatens to dramatically slow new builds in 2013 and beyond, despite recent improvements in the cost and performance of wind power technology.
###
Berkeley Lab's contributions to this report were funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 12 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
Additional Information:
The full report ("2011 Wind Technologies Market Report"), a presentation slide deck that summarizes the report, and an Excel workbook that contains much of the data presented in the report, can all be downloaded from:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/ems/re-pubs.html
The Department of Energy's press release on this study is available at: http://energy.gov/articles/energy-report-us-wind-energy-production-and-manufacturing-surges-supporting-jobs-and
END
Pioneering mass spectrometry methods developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory are helping plant biologists get their first glimpses of never-before-seen plant tissue structures.
The new method opens up new realms of study, ones that might have long-ranging implications for biofuels research and crop genetics.
"The data we're seeing are unprecedented," said Basil Nikolau, the Ames Laboratory faculty scientist heading up the project, funded by DOE's Office of Science.
The laboratory's team of researchers has developed a new more highly sensitive ...
Screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) is cost-effective and saves lives by early detection. The ability to screen large numbers of individuals is especially important for states with tight health insurance budgets dealing with aging populations. However, in 2010 only 65 percent of US adults between ages 50 and 75 got the recommended screening. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the American Journal of Managed Care demonstrates a systematic approach to improve screening rates.
"With an introductory phone call and then mailed testing kits, ...
Scientists working with Professor Dr. Dr. Perikles Simon, head of the Sports Medicine division of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany, suggest in the light of recent analyses that German children gain weight soon after entering elementary school. From birth up to the age of five years, today's children's weight development is nearly identical to those from twenty years ago. Then as now there are about 10 percent of the children in this age range who are classified as being overweight. There is even a slight tendency that in the first five years of their ...
1. Task Force Finds Insufficient Evidence to Weigh the Benefits and Harms of Routine Screening for Age-related Hearing Loss
Age-related hearing loss is a common health problem that can affect independence, emotional well-being, and quality of life. Several screening methods have proven accurate for identifying hearing impairment, including simple clinical tools and questionnaires. In 1996, the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended that primary care physicians periodically question older adults about their hearing, counsel them about hearing aids, and ...
RICHLAND, Wash. -- An analysis of a decade's worth of tropical cyclones shows that when hurricanes blow over ocean regions swamped by fresh water, the conditions can unexpectedly intensify the storm. Although the probability that hurricanes will hit such conditions is small, ranging from 10 to 23 percent, the effect is potentially large: Hurricanes can become 50 percent more intense, researchers report in a study appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
These results might help improve predictions of a hurricane's power in ...
With new national anti-bullying ads urging parents to teach their kids to speak up if they witness bullying, one researcher has found that in humans' evolutionary past at least, helping the victim of a bully hastened our species' movement toward a more egalitarian society.
Humans have evolved a genetically-controlled drive to help weaker individuals fight back against a bully. The drive to help the weaker group members led to a dramatic reduction in group inequality and eventually enabled humans to develop widespread cooperation, empathy, compassion and egalitarian moral ...
DURHAM, N.C. – A common enzyme that is easily detected in blood may predict how well patients with advanced kidney cancer will respond to a specific treatment, according to doctors at Duke Cancer Institute.
The finding, published online Monday, Aug. 13, 2012, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, could lead to the first blood test to determine the best treatment for late-stage kidney cancer.
"Being able to direct these patients to a treatment we know will help them would be a major advancement in their care," said Andrew Armstrong, M.D., ScM, associate professor of medicine ...
Triclosan, an antibacterial chemical widely used in hand soaps and other personal-care products, hinders muscle contractions at a cellular level, slows swimming in fish and reduces muscular strength in mice, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Colorado. The findings appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
"Triclosan is found in virtually everyone's home and is pervasive in the environment," said Isaac Pessah, professor and chair of the Department of Molecular ...
MADISON -- When conflict breaks out in social groups, individuals make strategic decisions about how to behave based on their understanding of alliances and feuds in the group.
But it's been challenging to quantify the underlying trends that dictate how individuals make predictions, given they may only have seen a small number of fights or have limited memory.
In a new study, scientists at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison develop a computational approach to determine whether individuals behave predictably. With data ...
CHICAGO – A strategy using an algorithm that incorporates high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) values appears to be associated with ruling-out or ruling-in myocardial infarction (heart attack) within one hour in 77 percent of patients with acute chest pain who presented to an emergency department, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.
Patients with symptoms that suggest an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) account for about 10 percent of all emergency department consultations. Along with clinical ...
