The First Quarter of 2014 Global Wind Power Market Outlook Update recently released by Make Consulting details a market forecast for more than 50 key and emerging markets for wind power from 2014 to 2023. The forecast data include a split of expected onshore and offshore developments and an analysis of the latest order and pricing trends.
Key points regarding the expanding wind power market:
2013 only saw an addition of 34.5 GW of grid-connected wind capacity worldwide, which is a global market decline of 26% compared to 2012. However, a 40% growth is anticipated for 2014.
Global growth is expected to remain steady through 2017, with an average year-over-year growth of 2% from 2014 to 2017, before growing 5% on average annually from 2018 to 2023.
South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Russia all have emerging markets at the forefront of capacity additions and all play a key role in continued growth beyond 2020.
The European offshore sector is on track to set a record for new connected capacity in 2014, while the global offshore outlook of almost 20% CAGR from 2013-2023e depends on China achieving its aggressive targets.
Firm orders are up 45% year-over-year, and global pricing shows signs of an increase as well.
Now a team of Stanford researchers has looked at the "energetic cost" of manufacturing batteries and other storage technologies for the electrical grid. At issue is whether renewable energy supplies, such as wind power and solar photovoltaics, produce enough energy to fuel both their own growth and the growth of the necessary energy storage industry.
"Wind technologies generate far more energy than they consume," Dale said. "Our study showed that wind actually produces enough surplus electricity to support up to 72 hours of either battery or geologic storage. This suggests that the industry could deploy enough storage to cope with three-day lulls in wind, common to many weather systems, and still provide net electricity to society."
The results were especially good for onshore wind turbines. "We found that onshore wind backed by three days of geologic storage can support annual growth rates of 100 percent – in other words, double in size each year – and still maintain an energy surplus," he said.
"These results are very encouraging," said study co-author Sally Benson, a professor of energy resources engineering and director of the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford. "They show that you could create a sustainable energy system that grows and maintains itself by combining wind and storage together. This depends on the growth rate of the industry, because the faster you grow, the more energy you need to build new turbines and batteries."
One advantage of wind over solar power is that it has an enormous energy return on investment, Benson explained. "Within a few months, a wind turbine generates enough electricity to pay back all of the energy it took to build it," she said. "But some photovoltaics have an energy payback time of almost two years. To sustainably support grid-scale storage will require continued reductions in the amount of fossil fuel used to manufacture photovoltaic cells."
Wind turbines have become airborne! An enormous helium-filled wind turbine will soon float over the city of Fairbanks, Alaska to produce enough electricity for more than a dozen families living off the grid. Designed and built by MIT startup Altaeros Energies, the turbine known as BAT-Buoyant Airborne Turbine will hover at an altitude of 1,000 feet for 18 months, catching air currents that are five to eight times more powerful than winds on the ground.
There is a massive, untapped energy reserve that could power the entire energy grid in America and electrify every, single car. It's available right now, and could transform the United States into a global energy leader overnight, giving the nation's political leaders hope for dealing with looming climate impacts.
It isn't Bakken, or the Canadian oil sands via Keystone , or Powder River Basin coal, or natural gas seams via hydraulic fracturing.
It's the wind blowing gently, and intermittently, 10 miles offshore along the Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic Ocean and around America's other two coasts.
The truth is that there is enough wind blowing around all three coasts of America to power the entire energy grid in the country — many times over.
A new Department of Energy map is a bit of an eye opener for those of us getting skeptical about the Golden State’s wind potential. According to an article in the Wallstreet Journal, wind power makes sense in Texas, but not in California, “which isn’t located in the ‘wind belt.’” That may be true, but guess where the technology first took root!
With the help of DOE’s online map, you can track the development of US wind energy since the first turbines were erected in 1975. Another 48 wind farms were added over the next 18 years and, as you can see from the screen above, every one of them was in California!
According to the California Energy Commission, 95% of the state’s wind generating capacity comes from three regions: Altamont Pass (east of San Francisco), Tehachapi (southeast of Bakersfield), and San Gorgonio Pass (east of Los Angeles).
“In 1995, these areas produced 30 percent of the entire world’s wind-generated electricity.”
Minnesota came online in 1994. Three more states started using wind energy soon after that: Texas (1995), Alaska (1997), and Vermont (1997).
The last map of this series is from 2012. California has once again taken second place and the ranking, as of December 2013, is as follows:
1. Texas (12,355 MW)
2. California (5,830 MW)
3. Iowa (5,178 MW)
4. Illinois (3,568 MW)
5. Oregon (3,153 MW)
The political winds in the nation’s capitol shifted on Thursday in favor of wind energy.
A Senate committee passed a bill that would restore two key tax credits for the wind industry. Both credits have helped spur the sector’s rapid growth in recent years, but Congress allowed them to expire at the end of last year. Uncertainty over whether the incentives would be extended into 2014 was blamed for a startling decline in wind farm construction last year, when just 1 gigawatt of capacity was installed — down from 13 gigawatts the year before.
Thursday’s move by the Senate Finance Committee doesn’t guarantee that the full Senate will support resurrection of the credits, much less the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But encouraging signs emerged after Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) tried to kill the credits. He argued that restoring them would amount to picking energy-industry winners and losers and forcing taxpayers to “subsidize inefficient, uncompetitive forms of energy.” (Meanwhile, taxpayers continue a century-long tradition of subsidizing fossil fuels.) CleanTechnica reports on the encouraging bipartisan response to Toomey’s effort:
The growth of wind power in the United States is putting a significant dent in emissions, according to a forthcoming report from the American Wind Energy Association. Wind generation avoided 95.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2013, which is equivalent to taking 16.9 million cars off the road.
That's a 4.4 percent cut to power sector emissions, when compared to the level of emissions that would have been generated if that power had come from fossil fuels. Wind proponents say that's evidence that the wind industry is playing a major role in meeting U.S. emissions goals. "Every time a megawatt of wind power is generated, something else is not generated," said Elizabeth Salerno, AWEA's vice president for industry data and analysis.
Higher performance turbines, lower manufacturing costs and lower prices for consumers drove new U.S. wind energy construction to record heights in early 2014 — despite the U.S. Congress still debating whether or not to renew the federal renewable energy production tax credit (PTC), which expired Dec. 31. In many parts of the U.S., wind energy is now the cheapest form of electricity generation – cheaper than natural gas and even coal, NextEra chief financial office Moray P. Dewhurst recently stated on an earnings call.
The federal wind energy PTC has been instrumental in the U.S. wind energy industry achieving that milestone. Yet, Congress has been playing “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t” with the U.S. wind energy industry for two decades now. Every time the PTC expires, wind energy investment and new capacity tumbles; when it’s in place, wind energy booms. It’s just bad policy, emblematic of the divisive partisanship, cronyism, lack of foresight and political leadership that has come to characterize U.S. politics.
In its “Outlook for Renewable Energy 2014,” the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), working in conjunction with U.S. renewable energy industry trade associations, presents facts and figures that clearly illustrate the triple-bottom-line benefits and advantages the U.S. wind energy industry brings to American society, and how the renewable energy PTC has played a seminal role in spurring them on to realization.
Wind energy: Cheapest energy source in the U.S.
Faced with the increasingly urgent need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and build a new clean energy infrastructure for the 21st century and beyond, members of Congress continue to oppose clean, renewable energy policies that carry tremendous, clearly demonstrated economic, social and environmental benefits and advantages. They also continue to support subsidies and incentives for one of the most profitable, dangerously polluting and politically powerful lobbies in U.S. history – the oil and gas industry.
The United States may lag behind Europe and China when it comes to building offshore wind farms and connecting them to the grid, but there’s one aspect of the industry we remain very competitive in – announcing prospective projects.
While the installed total capacity of offshore wind is now over 7,000 megawatts (MW) worldwide, America still hasn’t been able to get steel in the water beyond test-sized or demonstration turbines.
But fast on the heels of good legal news for the oft-delayed Cape Wind project, offshore wind announcements in three states across the US hint at the potential for turbines to be spinning in American waters in the near future.
Let’s start with the most mature project, the 30MW proposed Block Island. Offshore wind firm Deepwater Wind won the rights to develop 164,750 acres off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the Interior Department’s first competitive offshore wind lease sale last year, in what could eventually become a massive 1,000MW-capacity wind farm.
Since then, Deepwater Wind has estimated the project will generate $100 million in economic activity and signed an agreement with Alstom to install the largest offshore wind turbines available today, and has started to clear regulatory hurdles standing in the way of beginning construction.
The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council subcommittee approved the project 5-0, sending it to the full council for a vote as early as mid-May, and the state Division of Public Utilities and Carriers has approved a $9.5 million sale of Block Island transmission facilities to regional utility National Grid.
Under the deal, National Grid will construct and own infrastructure to link the project to the mainland grid including a 20-mile submarine electric cable and a coastal substation and switchyard, as well as purchase assets including ocean floor rights-of-way and state easements.
Led by Asia and other developing regions, the global wind market will grow at an annual cumulative capacity rate of more than 10 percent over the next five years, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). The group released its annual report yesterday and discussed its findings on a press call.
The Wind Market in 2013 — An “Off” Year
The past year was a rough one for wind enegy due to the fact that for the first time in history less wind energy capacity was installed in 2013 than was installed in 2012. From 1996 through to 2012, annual installed capacity for wind grew at an average rate of more than 20 percent but that percentage dropped dramatically in 2013 “caused by political uncertainty surrounding the tax laws in the U.S.,” according to Steve Saywer, GWEC Secretary General. The U.S. only installed about 1 GW of wind power in 2013, compared to more than 12 GW the year before. The chart below shows global annual installed wind capacity (courtesy GWEC).
In terms of annual markets for wind power, China is the leader and will remain in that spot for the foreseeable future, said Sawyer. “Germany had a very strong year as did the UK but probably for the first time in history, Canada installed more wind energy than the United States,” he said. Sawyer said that in 2014 Brazil could have a very good year. “It could be third next year.” The charts below (courtesy GWEC) show the top 10 countries for cumulative installed wind power today and the top 10 countries for annual installations of wind power in 2013.
Wind turbines hovering high in the air and tethered to the ground, like kites, have the potential to generate huge amounts of electricity, based on a recent wind availability study led by the University of Delaware.
Researchers pinpointed tracts of the atmosphere ideal for locating airborne wind energy (AWE) devices, which convert kinetic energy from wind into electricity. Findings published in the April issue of Renewable Energy show that there are enough areas usable by airborne turbines to produce several terawatts of electric power annually—more than enough needed to meet worldwide demands.
"These areas, which we call 'wind speed maxima,' form much more often and in more regions than we thought," said study lead author Cristina Archer, associate professor in UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. "That was a surprise."
If airborne wind turbines sound like a high-flying idea, they're not. More than 20 companies are developing various versions of the technology, with over 100 related patents filed in the United States alone.
"There are prototypes, but no one has a commercially viable product ready for market yet," said Damon Vander Lind of the Google-backed Makani Power. "This means that widespread deployment in farms is still a few years out."
Wind developers from around the globe have rushed into the Texas Panhandle and Gulf Coast at a pace not seen since the industry’s early days in the mid-2000s.
More than 7,000 megawatts of new wind turbines are scheduled to be built by the end of next year, potentially increasing Texas’ wind power capacity by almost 60 percent. Whether developers will be able to carry through as advertised remains to be seen. But the volume of projects underway represents a dramatic acceleration for a Texas wind industry that has seen relatively modest growth since 2010.
“To put it in perspective, 7,000 megawatts is more than any other state has installed right now,” said Emily Williams, senior policy analyst for the American Wind Energy Association.
When it comes to new power capacity in the U.S., it's all about renewables.
Last October, renewable energy accounted for nearly 100 percent of all new generation capacity in the U.S. For the first quarter of 2014, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar, made up more than 90 percent of new installed power capacity, with natural gas making up the remainder.
The trend is shown below in a map from Ventyx, ABB’s software arm and a leader in IT/OT convergence and helping utilities integrate renewables into their systems. Wind power projects dominate new capacity under construction, according to the chart, followed by natural gas plants and then solar.
While growth rates in wind power markets in the developed world have plateaued or, in some cases, fallen, developing economies are expected to see robust growth in the coming years. Strong political support, rising electricity demand due to rapid economic growth, and an imperative demand for energy diversification, are all contributing to an optimistic outlook for wind power development in emerging markets. Click to tweet: According to a recent report from Navigant Research , annual wind power installations in 10 selected markets in Africa and the former Soviet Union will grow from 1,636 megawatts (MW) in 2014 to 3,350 MW in 2023.
“While growth in established markets has slowed in recent years, demand for wind power in Africa and the former Soviet Union, as well as developing countries in Asia Pacific, is growing,” says Feng Zhao, research director with Navigant Research. “The opportunities arising in these regions will help reduce the exposure of original equipment manufacturers to ups and downs in the mainstream wind power markets, while making wind power one of the main energy sources in the global context.”
South Africa and Russia, the largest economies in each region, have been bright spots for wind power investment, according to the report. This is despite their governments’ requirement for a substantial proportion of technology spending in local markets in return for preferential market share. Although the countries from the former Soviet Union tend to be rich in fossil fuel resources, many of them have released renewable energy targets to reduce their reliance on hydrocarbons (oil, gas, and coal) and their exposure to fluctuating global energy markets.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the three pilot projects that will continue to receive DOE funding to design, develop, and deploy their offshore wind technologies and processes. Each will receive up to another $47 million over the next four years to push their projects to fruition and commercial operation by 2017.
David Danielson, the DOE's Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, revealed the winners today at the AWEA Windpower conference in Las Vegas. The DOE had been expected to announce its downselects later this month, but making the announcement at the wind power industry's annual domestic get-together seems more logical.
The three winning projects are:
Fishermen's Atlantic City Windfarm, Fishermen's Energy, New Jersey: This project will install five 5-MW direct-drive turbines in 36 foot depths about three nautical miles off of Atlantic City. It will incorporate a twisted jacket foundation to simplify construction and installation and lower costs; it's also working on ways to extend construction hours and reduce construction noise. Fishermen's also is using scanning LIDAR.
WindFloat Pacific, Principle Power, Oregon: This project about 18 miles off Coos Bay in 1,000-foot depths incorporates a semi-submersible floating foundation similar to one already deployed off the coast of Portugal. The floating platform can be mass-produced and completely assembled onshore, then towed out to the site, ballasted, and attached to preinstalled anchors and cabling -- which translates to using smaller vessels, reduced installation time, time, and saving costs. This project also will use floating LIDAR, as well as cables not typically seen in wind farms that float beneath the surface between the platforms instead of stretching down to the bottom and then over.
Virginia Offshore Wind Technology Advanced Project, Dominion, Virginia: This project, encompassing two 6-MW direct-drive turbines about 20 nautical miles offshore in 50 feet of water, represents far-from-the-shorline development for offhshore wind. It also will incoporate a twisted-jacket foundation, designed here in the U.S., as well as a hurricane-resilient design. Dominion also is looking at high-voltage cables that can be smaller-diameter and less-expensive.
The United States, on the other, is generating not a watt from commercial offshore wind farms, despite 80 percent of its electricity demand coming from coastal states, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In fact, the offshore wind capacity of the country has been estimated at 4 million megawatts, or four times the entire generating capacity of existing U.S. power plants.
You know where there’s a lot of wind that could be harvested for energy? The upper layers of the atmosphere, which contain as much as 870 terawatts of power — that’s 870 trillion watts! Researchers, startups and even some established players are getting serious about capturing that energy, and they’ll be gathering for a conference at Stanford at the end of this month.
Wind energy is one of the most promising renewable energy resources in the world today. Dr. Hui Hu and his group at Iowa State University studied the effects of the relative rotation directions of two tandem wind turbines on power production performance, the flow characteristics in the turbine wake flows, and the resultant wind loads acting on the turbines. The experimental study was performed in a large-scale Aerodynamics/Atmospheric Boundary Layer (AABL) Wind Tunnel available at Aerospace Engineering Department of Iowa State University. Their work, entitled "An experimental study on the effects of relative rotation direction on the wake interferences among tandem wind turbines", was published recently in Science Сhina Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, 2014, Vol 57(5).
Newly released Department of Energy (DOE) data show that consumers in the states that use the most wind energy have fared far better than consumers in states that use less wind energy.
The 11 states that produce more than seven percent of their electricity from wind energy have seen their electricity prices fall by 0.37% over the last fice years, while all other states have seen their electricity prices increase by 7.79% over that time period.
The following charts summarize the change in power prices for consumers in Texas, Wyoming, Oregon, Oklahoma, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa compared to all other states. Between the end of 2008 and the end of 2013, these eleven states more than doubled their operating wind power, increasing their wind capacity by 116%.
The falling cost of renewables is not news to those who have paid attention to analysis from green-focused think tanks, or groups like Bloomberg New Energy Finance. But it is when a major European utility, with equal exposure to fossil fuels, wind, and hydro, says that onshore wind is the cheapest of any new utility-scale technology.
That is the assessment of Portugal’s EDP, which has around 24 GW of generation, of which around 8.7 GW is in onshore wind.
In a recent presentation to analysts, EDP’s head of renewables Joao Manso Neto presented this slide below, which shows that the levellised cost of electricity of onshore win in Europe is 20 per cent cheaper than gas and one third cheaper than coal. (The figure assumes 25 per cent wind capacity factor).
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