NREL and Partners Review Key Issues, Lessons Learned from U.S. Wind Integration Studies and Operating Practices
As a complement to DOE's recently released Wind Vision Report, a new paper summarizes the lessons learned from actual power systems operational practice, along with some of the most relevant and comprehensive wind integration studies conducted during the past several years.
In the years since the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) 20% Wind Energy by 2030 study was published in 2008, a great deal has been learned about the impacts that wind generation can have on electric power systems and how to efficiently integrate wind power into the bulk power system. The new report Review and Status of Wind Integration and Transmission in the United States: Key Issues and Lessons Learned adds to DOE's Wind Vision Report discussion about how to integrate wind energy into the bulk power system.
This report by NREL and several partners--all members of the Wind Vision Transmission and Integration Task Force--summarizes the lessons learned from some of the most relevant and comprehensive wind integration studies conducted during the past several years. It includes a discussion about lessons from operating practices, especially as related to reserves, efficient operating practices, and wind power forecasting. The concluding sections describe the main industry organizations involved in wind integration and transmission, briefly discuss transmission expansion related to wind energy, and include a summary.
About the Wind Vision Report
In support of the President's strategy to diversify our nation's clean energy mix, an elite team of more than 250 researchers, academics, scientists, engineers, and wind industry experts revisited the findings of DOE's 2008 20% Wind by 2030 report and built upon its findings to conceptualize a new vision for wind energy through 2050.
Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States takes America's current installed wind power capacity across all facets of wind energy (land-based, offshore, and distributed) as its baseline--a capacity that has tripled since the 2008 release of DOE's 20% Wind Energy by 2030 report--and assesses the potential economic, environmental, and social benefits of a scenario where U.S. wind power supplies 10% of the nation's electrical demand in 2020, 20% in 2030, and 35% in 2050. The Wind Vision Report builds upon the continued success of the wind industry to date and quantifies a robust wind energy future.
NREL contributed in-depth analysis, extensive research, and task force leadership, as well as substantial support in the graphics development, coordination, and publication of the Wind Vision Report.