This is just a start on a longer article that discusses why we have wind energy subsidies and grants in the US. The short answer is, the US government got tired of having to import energy and at one point the experts told government we were running out of natural gas. The gas industry took that as a challenge and proceeded to drill in novel ways and find huge amounts of natural gas. Gas became cheap, and wind energy could not yet compete, so government extended the subsidies until 2021. By then, onshore wind turbine generators can compete without assistance. This will be added to from time to time.
Some of these events are described briefly by the DoE at this link.
1973 - Arab oil embargo increased gasoline prices; 1973 and again 1979 with Iranian revolution. America decides to act, to reduce our energy consumption across all sectors.
1977 President Carter's famous sweater speech; he tells the nation we are running out of energy (including natural gas) and all must conserve. Public fountains across the US go dry as pumps are switched off. Cities and towns across the US have no Christmas lights that year.
1978 President Carter signed PURPA, the Public Utilities Regulatory Act, which made utilities purchase electricity from small renewable plants, including wind. Industries across the country built their own cogeneration plants over the next decade to supply electricity and steam to the processes.
1980 - First large wind farm was built at Altamont Pass, California - bad design, too many perches for birds, developers discover the wind in California is weak at only 26 percent capacity factor.
1981 - NASA scientists develop Viterna Method for wind blade calculations
1988 10 MW lead-acid battery installed in Chino, California
1990s - faster computers allow better calculations. Wind blade calculations are long and complicated, so that fast computers are required to give optimal solutions.
1992 - President George H.W. Bush signed The Energy Policy Act, which authorizes a production tax credit of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour of wind-power-generated electricity and re-establishes a focus on renewable energy use. The PTC increases over time with inflation. Presently is at 2.3 cents per kWh.
1993 DoE builds the National Wind Technology Center to test wind systems
1996 5 MW lead-acid battery for grid-scale storage installed at Vernon, California
2008 The U.S. Department of Energy publishes their 20% Wind Energy by 2030 report
2008 US installed wind capacity reaches 25.4 GW.
2008 US wind energy production exceeded 1 percent of all electricity for the first time. Wind was 1.34 percent of all electricity sold in the US that year. Wind output jumped 62 percent over the previous year.
2011 The U.S. Department of Energy releases the National Offshore Wind Strategy in partnership with the Department of the Interior to reduce the cost of energy through technology development and reducing deployment timelines. In the following year, three offshore wind demonstration projects are chosen as a part of this $168 million initiative.
2012 US installed capacity reaches 60 GW. Annual electricity produced was barely under 3 percent (2.93) of all US electricity sold. The wind output had more than doubled in just 4 years. The annual growth rate was astounding, at 27 percent per year. Much of the new capacity is in the fabulous wind in the Great Plains region of the US, from Canada to Texas and Colorado to Missouri.
2013 First Grid-Connected Offshore Wind Turbine in the U.S., a small, 20 kW unit offshore Maine, with Dept of Energy funding. A storage battery on California's Santa Catalina Island was installed, at 1 MW and 7 hours capacity. (This was to allow the diesel generators to run constantly rather than cycle on and off, which created more air pollution).
2014 8 MW, 4 hours, grid-scale battery for wind energy storage installed at Tehachapi, California
2015 The Wind Vision Report is released showing that 35% wind energy is possible by
2050. Installed capacity reaches nearly 74 GW, while electricity produced was 4.68 percent of the total. Grid-scale batteries for storing electricity are installed in California.
2015 Wind technology improved dramatically, with onshore projects in the Great Plains region profitable with only 4.3 cents per kWh (total) sold. Installation costs fell to $1600 per kW nameplate capacity. Annual capacity factors in the best locations exceed 40 percent.
2016 First grid-scale offshore wind farm starts operation offshore Rhode Island, the Block Island project with 30 MW using 5 turbines of 6 MW each. Production tax credit is reduced over several years and ends completely in 5 years.
2016 Annual electricity produced by wind comprised 6.53 percent of all US electricity sold in 2016.
2017 Total installed capacity reaches 84,000 GW. In early 2017 (April), wind energy exceeded 8 percent (8.65) of all US electricity sold on a monthly basis. EIA numbers show that wind energy output was as much as hydroelectric power output.
2017 Oklahoma announces approval and financing for a 2,000 MW wind energy farm in the panhandle region, having 800 turbines at 2.5 MW each.
2017 70 MW total of grid-scale batteries, all 10 MW or larger, operating in Southern California. The two largest are 30 MW each.
2017 Contracts are signed for a 100 MW, 85 MW and a 50 MW battery systems, for Long Beach and Los Angeles, respectively. Storage is 4 hours for the 100 MW battery.
2017 August, US Dept of Energy states: " . . . 28 (offshore wind) projects, totaling 23,735 megawatts (MW) of potential installed capacity, are now in the works. Near-term activity is concentrated in the North Atlantic, but other projects are in various stages of development across the country, including the Great Lakes, the West Coast, and Hawaii." see link
2017 September, offshore Block Island Wind Project easily withstands tropical-storm force winds as Hurricane José passes nearby.
2018 May, GE publishes details of the 12 MW offshore wind turbine, "Haliade-X 12 MW, the most powerful offshore wind turbine in the world to date, featuring a 12 MW capacity (the world’s first), 220-meter rotor, a 107-meter blade designed by LM Wind Power, and digital capabilities. In addition to being the biggest offshore wind turbine, the Haliade-X will also be the most efficient of wind turbines in the ocean." see link Anthony Watts publishes on WUWT blog a scathing article on the new turbines, after Sowell informed him by email of the GE publication. Such negativity displays a vast ignorance, or a considered dis-information ploy. Meanwhile, as the next item shows, offshore wind developers install ever-larger turbines with ever-better economics. As Andrew Breitbart stated so eloquently, "Walk toward the fire. Don't worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, you're sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you. The message is that they can do it, too."
2018 May, Vestas V164-8 MW turbines are installed at the Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore windfarm, Germany. This is a 450 MW installation, requiring only 56 turbines.
2018 May, OTC2018 (Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, TX) devotes several sessions and one lunch seminar to offshore wind, where the lunch speakers were from DeepWater Wind, and the wind division of Statoil. Floating spar technology is planned for installation off the northern California coast where the wind is outstanding. Statoil stated the next decade will see $30 Billion invested in offshore wind worldwide. DeepWater stated the new, larger turbines will bring down sales price of offshore wind to 10 cents per kWh. Statoil stated they installed a 1 MW, 1-hour duration battery known as Batwind at the 30 MW Hywind, Scotland offshore wind farm; to ease the transition of power on and power off into the Scotland grid.
UPDATE July 16, 2019: Two major events in both offshore and onshore wind occurred in 2019; both have enormous (some would say HUUUGE) implications for renewable energy worldwide. The first event is the installation of the largest-ever offshore wind turbine generator (WTG), the GE-built Haliade 12X in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Yes, it is an onshore installation, not offshore, but that is for ease of access during testing and verification purposes. The 12X has a nominal output of 12 MW, and a claimed annual capacity factor of 63 percent. The economics of the 12 MW WTG are very favorable; such that a sales price of 5 cents US per kWh allows a nice return on the investment. A major wind project offshore in EU has announced they will use the 12 MW turbines. see link for details of the GE Haliade 12X.
Meanwhile, GE has done it again. This time in the onshore industry, where a major limit to increased size and better economics for WTG has been the inability to transport longer blades from manufacturer to the wind turbine site. The US Department of Energy recently sent out a call for ideas to solve the transportation problem. GE has since (March, 2019) announced their 5 MW WTG, the Cypress model, that has blades fabricated in two parts for ease of shipping. At the site, the two parts are joined for installation and operation. This also is huge for onshore WTG, since the almost double output brings down the sales price of electricity. Adequate returns are provided at present with 4.3 cents per kWh from the 2.5-3 MW size WTG. The 5 MW Cypress WTG will allow an adequate return at something below the 4.3 cents, most likely in the 2.5-3 cents per kWh range. see link for details of the Cypress 5 MW. --- end update 7-16-2019
UPDATE 4 November 2019: US has now 100,000 MW of wind turbine generators installed (nameplate capacity), per AWEA press release. "US wind power reaches milestone 100 gigawatts, 46 gigawatts more on the way" - 10/31/19. This total surpasses nuclear power in the US, which now is down to 98 GW and declining as more and more nuclear reactors are shut down permanently.
GE reports strong orders for the 5 MW Cypress WTG. The 12 MW Haliade WTG is complete and tests are underway in Rotterdam. The offshore US market is hot and growing rapidly. -- end update 11-4-2019
Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Spring, Texas
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved
copyright (c) 2017 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved
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Climate Change................here and here
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