U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow announced today that the Department of Energy will open negotiations for 21 public-private partnerships to greatly expand potential U.S. wind development through advances in cost effective low wind speed technology.
The value of the cost-shared projects is expected to total $60 million over the next four years. The announcement came at the wind industrys Global WINDPOWER 2004 Conference in Chicago.
The nations vast wind energy resources can play a much larger role in our energy supply portfolio, Deputy Secretary McSlarrow said. These industry and university partnerships will help develop next generation wind technology and open the door to wind power at many locations around the country that otherwise would not be cost-competitive.
Much of the commercial wind power development has occurred to date at high wind sites, in other words the best wind sites. However, many of these sites are located in remote areas that do not have ready access to transmission lines.
Moreover, easily accessible prime high wind sites are becoming limited. President Bushs National Energy Plan specifically cited low wind speed technology as an opportunity to significantly expand use of wind energy. The new low wind speed projects will focus on technology improvements for making more widespread low wind speed sites cost competitive with high wind sites. Efforts include new R&D projects targeting multi-megawatt scale components and turbine systems for land, as well as offshore applications.
The new partnerships are being launched under a three phase technology development project aimed at the departments goal of reducing wind powered electricity generation costs at low speed sites (annual average wind speeds of approximately 13 miles per hour, measured at a height of 10 meters) to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
This comprehensive program includes:
1) conceptual design studies to explore new configurations and design approaches;
2) component developments for inclusion in next generation designs or existing machines; and
3) full system developments incorporating the best of proposed innovations.
The 21 new partnerships announced today were selected under the second phase of this project, and the selected companies will plan to share 50 percent of the project costs overall.
The selected project partners are from more than 10 different states. The partners include: Clipper Windpower Technology (Carpinteria, Calif.), General Electric Global Research (Niskayuna, N.Y.), Global Energy Concepts (Kirkland, Wash.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.), Native American Technologies (Lakewood, Colo.), Northern Power Systems (Waitsfield, Vt.), Tennessee Valley Infrastructure Group (Chattanooga, Tenn.), and Valmont Industries (Omaha, Neb.).
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