2019 Cost of Wind Energy Review

About: The article was published on 2020-12-30 and is currently open access. It has received 70 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Wind power.

Figures

Table 4. Land-Based CapEx and LCOE Breakdown

Figure 17. Fixed-bottom wind GPRA cost trajectories for LCOE

Table 29. Distributed Wind Reference Projects OpEx

Table 15. Reference Offshore Wind Turbine Parameter Input Assumptions

Figure 1. CapEx for the land-based reference wind power plant project

Figure 18. Fixed-bottom cost reductions in GPRA cost trajectories for LCOE

Full text

NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.
Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308
Technical Report
NREL/TP-5000-78471
December 2020
2019 Cost of Wind Energy Review
Tyler Stehly,
Philipp Beiter, and Patrick Duffy
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy
Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications.
Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
15013 Denver West Parkway
Golden, CO 80401
303-275-3000 • www.nrel.gov
Technical Report
NREL/TP-5000-78471
December 2020
2019 Cost of Wind Energy Review
Tyler Stehly,
Philipp Beiter, and Patrick Duffy
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Suggested Citation
Stehly, Tyler, Philipp Beiter and Patrick Duffy. 2020.
2019 Cost of Wind Energy Review.
Golden, CO: National
Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-5000-78471.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/78471.pdf
.

NOTICE
This work was authored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable
Energy, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308. Funding
provided by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Wind Energy
Technologies Office. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S.
Government.
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications
.
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iii
This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at www.nrel.gov/publications.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Patrick Gilman (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office [WETO]) for supporting
this research. Thanks also to Daniel Beals of Allegheny Science and Technology (contractor to
WETO), Gage Reber (WETO fellow), Alice Orrell (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), and
Bret Barker (contractor to WETO) for reviewing prior versions of this manuscript. Thank you to
Ryan Wiser and Mark Bolinger (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Alice Orrell
(Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) for their analysis of wind project market data that
informed this analysis and also to Travis Williams, Nick Grue, and Anthony Lopez (National
Renewable Energy Laboratory) for their work in developing the national wind supply curves.
Thanks also to Eric Lantz (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) for his technical guidance,
contributions, and review of prior versions of this manuscript. Any remaining errors or omissions
are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at www.nrel.gov/publications.
List of Acronyms
AEP annual energy production
ATB Annual Technology Baseline
BOS balance of system
CapEx capital expenditures
CRF capital recovery factor
CSM Cost and Scaling Model
DOE U.S. Department of Energy
FCR fixed charge rate
GPRA Government Performance and Results Act
GW gigawatt
kW kilowatt
LandBOSSE Land-based Balance of System Systems
Engineering
LCOE levelized cost of energy
m meter
m/s meters per second
MACRS Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System
MW megawatt
MWh megawatt-hour
NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
O&M operation and maintenance
OpEx operational expenditures
ORCA Offshore Wind Regional Cost Analyzer
PTC production tax credit
USD U.S. dollars
WACC weighted-average cost of capital
WETO Wind Energy Technologies Office
yr year