05/14/2008 06:22 AM

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Weekly Clean Energy Roundup: May 14, 2008

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• New DOE Report Analyzes a Path to 20% Wind Power by 2030
• U.S. Wind Power Still Growing at a Record Pace, Says AWEA
• DOE Chalks Up 500 Energy Saving Assessments at Major Industries
• Long Island Utility to Launch a 10-Year Energy Efficiency Program
• Nissan to Sell an Electric Vehicle in the United States in 2010
• Minnesota to Require 20% Biodiesel Blends by 2015, with Caveats
• Oil Producers Head to Deep Water in the Gulf of Mexico

New DOE Report Analyzes a Path to 20% Wind Power by 2030

Wind power could provide 20% of U.S. electricity needs by 2030, according to a new DOE report. The report, titled "20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply," identifies the steps that need to be addressed to reach the 20% goal, including reducing the cost of wind technologies, building new transmission infrastructure, and enhancing domestic manufacturing capability.

Released on Monday, the report was produced by DOE and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories with the assistance of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), engineering consultants from Black and Veatch Corporation, and more than 50 energy organizations and corporation.

According to the report, reaching the 20% goal will require boosting wind power from its current generating capacity of 16.8 gigawatts (GW) to 304 GW in 2030, an 18-fold increase. Despite the magnitude of that challenge, most of the report's key findings are encouraging.

Notably, the report concludes that 20% wind power can be reliably integrated into the grid at a cost of less than 0.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, which compares favorably to today's average retail price of electricity in the United States, at 8.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. In addition, the demand for copper, fiberglass, and other raw materials needed to build the wind power facilities will not be prohibitive to reaching the 20% goal.

However, the report also identifies several challenges that need to be overcome. Achieving 20% wind power by 2030 will require that the annual installations of wind power increase threefold, from today's 2,000 annual turbine installations to almost 7,000 per year by 2017. Also, new transmission lines will need to be installed reach the most productive wind resource sites.

But between now and the time the goal is reached, wind power will have avoided the emission of 7.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide, helping to forestall the growth in greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants. The 304 GW of wind power will also continue avoiding 825 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year thereafter.

For comparison, the United States currently emits about 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. While helping to address greenhouse gas emissions, the accelerated wind power effort would support roughly 500,000 U.S. jobs while adding more than $1.5 billion in annual revenues to the coffers of local communities.

For more information, see the press releases from DOE and AWEA, the 20% Wind Energy by 2030 Web site, DOE's Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program Web site, and the full text of the report (PDF 3.95 MB).

U.S. Wind Power Still Growing at a Record Pace, Says AWEA

The U.S. wind energy industry installed 1,400 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity during the first quarter of 2008, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). With more than 4,000 MW of additional wind power capacity now under construction, the industry is on pace to meet or exceed last year's record installed capacity of 5,249 MW (AWEA recently adjusted this number upward from the earlier reported number of 5,244 MW).

More than half of the new capacity was built in Texas, including the largest new facility, the 209-MW Roscoe Wind Farm, which was built by Airtricity, Inc. and is located about 50 miles west of Abilene. The largest new facility under construction is the 400-MW Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Indiana, located 90 miles northwest of Indianapolis. That project and the nearby 130.5-MW Benton County Wind Farm will be the first major wind facilities in Indiana.

But despite the wind industry's current breakneck pace and geographical expansion, AWEA warns that construction could stall next year if the production tax credit is not renewed. The tax credit expires at the end of the year and could result in a rush to complete the current projects before the year's end. See the AWEA press release and first-quarter market report (PDF 226 KB).

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