Wind Research
Economic Analysis and Data Analytics

Economic Analysis and Data Analytics

NREL's unique economic modeling and analysis capabilities clarify the financial impacts of wind energy technology and process innovations.

NREL regularly evaluates the energy industry to forecast implications and identify challenges. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL

NREL steers R&D strategies by tracking and analyzing historical wind energy technology trends. The lab's engineering and cost models consider the interplay between technology innovation, system-level trade-oﬀs, and R&D impacts, while our capacity expansion and grid operations models inform broader energy deployment and integration into the power system.

Capabilities

Techno-Economic Analysis

NREL analysts provide technological and economic analyses to address high-priority executive, congressional, industry, and senior management priorities. Our supporting economic impact research and modeling tools provide the industry with information on costs, benefits, risks, uncertainties, and timeframes related to the development and operation of wind energy in the United States.

Capabilities include:

Historical market and technology trends
Technology innovation and system design, optimization, and cost analyses
Plant innovation impacts at regional and continental scales
Workforce estimation.

Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning

NREL aims to realize new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and cost reductions by applying data-driven technological developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep the United States competitive globally. These advances are made possible by widespread digitization, Internet of Things, data science tools, and open data management. Our team supports partners with high-performance computing and onsite meteorological towers and turbines to evaluate Internet of Things integrations, edge-computing techniques, and other Industry 4.0 technologies.

Capabilities include:

Machine learning and artificial intelligence
Open-source big data management and analytics
Statistics and visualization
Instrumentation and Internet of Things deployments.

Integration With the Grid

NREL researchers develop and apply advanced capacity expansion and production cost models to study the potential for, and impact of, integrating large-scale energy resources onto the U.S. electric power grid. They also assess the economics of wind energy providing a suite of grid services—capacity, energy, operating reserves, and essential reliability services—needed for a reliable power supply to meet growing American demand.

Capabilities include:

Capacity expansion modeling
Production cost simulations
Probabilistic resource adequacy analyses
Grid integration.

Co-Use and Spatial Analysis

NREL is building new geospatial modeling capabilities for energy potential that consider emerging turbine technologies, provide higher-fidelity characterizations of deployment opportunities, and account for various location-based challenges.

Capabilities include:

Spatial statistical analyses
Techno-economic supply curve modeling
Spatiotemporal, big data, high-performance computing, and machine learning
Visualization and mapping
Machine learning for spatial prediction and ordinance collection
State and local opportunities and impacts.

Projects

Each year, NREL produces a review of representative utility-scale and distributed wind energy projects to estimate the levelized cost of energy for wind power plants in the United States.

NREL's Electricity Annual Technology Baseline provides consistent, freely available cost and performance parameters for wind energy and other types of electricity-generating sources from the present through 2050 based on various scenarios, resource characteristics, sites, fuel prices, and financial assumptions.

Every year, NREL researchers assess the market on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. The annual report provides unbiased reporting of offshore wind energy market trends, technologies, and costs.

NREL examines how increasing wind energy to support growing demand on the U.S. grid will require a significant ramp-up in the U.S. supply chain, including domestic manufacturing, ports, vessels, and workforce, all of which are currently limited. This study is overseen, conducted, funded, and supported by partnerships and collaborations with many federal and state governmental, academic, and industry organizations.

NREL identifies opportunity for a strategically designed U.S. West Coast ports network that can grow domestic supply chains and support energy deployment.

Resources and Tools

Distributed Generation Market Demand (dGen™) Model

Cambium Datasets Contain Modeled Hourly Data for Possible Futures of the U.S. Electricity Sector Through 2050

Community Benefits Guide (WINDExchange Guide)

REopt^® Techno-Economic Decision-Support Platform To Optimize Energy Systems

Land-Based Wind Energy Economic Development Guide (WINDExchange Guide)

System Advisor Model™ (SAM) for Techno-Economic Analysis of Energy Technologies

Wind Geospatial Data Tools

Explore all of NREL’s wind energy facilities and data and tools.

View all publications.

Partner With Us

Learn more about how to work with us.

Contact

Kendra Ryan

Decision Support Analysis Group Manager

[email protected]