The ground-breaking report, '20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to US Electricity Supply', looks closely at one scenario for reaching 20% wind energy by 2030 and contrasts it with the scenario of no new US wind power capacity.
"The Department of Energy (DoE) wind report is a thorough look at America's wind resource, its industrial capabilities and future energy prices, and confirms the viability and commercial maturity of wind as a major contributor to America's energy needs now and in the future," says DoE Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Andy Karsner.
"To dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and enhance our energy security, clean power generation at the gigawatt scale will be necessary, and will require us to take a comprehensive approach to scaling renewable wind power, streamlining siting and permitting processes, and expanding the domestic wind manufacturing base."
Included in the report are an examination of the US's technological and manufacturing cpabilities, the future costs of energy sources, wind energy resources, and the environmental and economic impacts of wind development. Under the 20% wind scenario, installations of new wind power capacity would increase to more than 16 000 MW/y by 2018, and continue at that rate to 2030.
"The report shows that wind power can provide 20% of the nation's electricity by 2030, and be a critical part of the solution to global warming," says American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) executive director Randall Swisher.
"This level of wind power is the equivalent of taking 140-million cars off the road," he says.
"The report identifies the central constraints to achieving 20% – transmission, siting, manufacturing and technology – and demonstrates how each can be overcome. As an inexhaustible domestic resource, wind strengthens our energy security, improves the quality of the air we breathe, slows climate change, and revitalises rural communities."
The report finds that achieving a 20% wind contribution to US electricity supply would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 25% in 2030; reduce natural gas use by 11%; reduce water consumption associated with electricity generation by four-trillion gallons by 2030; increase annual revenues to local communities to more than $1,5-billion by 2030; and support about 500 000 jobs in the US, with an average of more than 150 000 workers directly employed by the wind industry.
At 20% of electric power generation, significant growth in the manufacturing supply chain would create jobs and remedy the current shortage in parts for wind turbines.
Reducing the use of natural gas could save money for consumers owing to the resulting downward pressure on the price of natural gas, according to the AWEA.
The report comes at an important time in wind development. In 2007, wind was one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity in the nation, second only to natural gas for the third consecutive year. According to the AWEA report, the US wind energy industry continued new installations at a break neck pace in the first quarter of 2008, putting 1 400 MW, or approximately $3-billion worth of new generating capacity, in place – enough to serve the equivalent of 400 000 homes – coupled with investment in 17 new manufacturing facilities over the last year.
