This book provides a detailed roadmap of technical, economic, and institutional actions by the wind industry, the wind research community, and others to optimize wind's potential contribution to a cleaner, more reliable, low-carbon, domestic energy generation portfolio, utilizing U.S. manu-facturing and a U.S. workforce. The roadmap is intended to be the beginning of an evolving, collaborative, and necessarily dynamic process. It thus suggests an approach of continual updates at least every two years, informed by its analysis activities. Roadmap actions are identified in nine topical areas, introduced below.
Profound energy system transformation is underway. In Hawaiian mythology, Maui set out to lasso the sun in order to capture its energy. He succeeded. That may have been the most dramatic leap forward in clean energy systems that the world has known. Until now. Today, another profound transformation is underway. A combination of forces is taking us from a carbon-centric, inefficient energy system to one that draws from diverse energy sources - including the sun. NREL analysis is helping guide energy systems policy and investment decisions through this transformation. This brochure highlights NREL analysis accomplishments in the context of four thematic storylines.
This NREL Highlight is being produced for the 2015 February Alliance S and T Board meeting, and describes research that uses lidar and feedforward algorithms to improve rotor speed regulation and reduce costs of maintenance and operation.
The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.
