Floating Offshore Wind Shot Pathways
This presentation is an overview of cost reduction pathways for floating offshore wind.
cost reduction↗
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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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Spatiotemporal Variability in Wind Turbine Blade Leading Edge Erosion
Wind turbine blade leading edge erosion (LEE) reduces energy production and increases wind energy operation and maintenance costs. Degradation of the blade coating and ultimately damage to the underlying blade structure are caused by collisions of falling hydrometeors with rotating blades. The selection of optimal methods to mitigate/reduce LEE are critically dependent on the rates of coating fatigue accumulation at a given location and the time variance in the accumulation of material stresses. However, no such assessment currently exists for the United States of America (USA). To address this research gap, blade coating lifetimes at 883 sites across the USA are generated based on high-frequency (5-min) estimates of material fatigue derived using a mechanistic model and robust meteorological measurements. Results indicate blade coating failure at some sites in as few as 4 years, and that the frequency and intensity of material stresses are both highly episodic and spatially varying. Time series analyses indicate that up to one-third of blade coating lifetime is exhausted in just 360 5-min periods in the Southern Great Plains (SGP). Conversely, sites in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) exhibit the same level of coating lifetime depletion in over three times as many time periods. Thus, it may be more cost-effective to use wind turbine deregulation (erosion-safe mode) for damage reduction and blade lifetime extension in the SGP, while the application of blade leading edge protective measures may be more appropriate in the PNW. Annual total precipitation and mean wind speed are shown to be poor predictors of blade coating lifetime, re-emphasizing the need for detailed modeling studies such as that presented herein.
Pryor, Sara C. (ORCID:0000000348473440)↗
Optimized Carbon Fiber Composites in Wind Turbine Blade Design: Follow-On Studies
This project has identified opportunities to bring further reductions in the mass and cost of modern wind turbine blades through the use of alternative material systems and manufacturing processes. The fiber reinforced polymer material systems currently used by the wind industry have stagnated as the technology continues to mature and as a means to reduce risk while introducing new products with continually increasing blade lengths. However, as blade lengths continue to increase, the challenge of controlling blade mass becomes even more critical to enabling the associated levelized cost of energy reductions. Stiffer and stronger reinforcement fibers can help to resolve the challenges of meeting the loading demands while limiting the increase in weight, but these materials are substantially more expensive than the traditional E-glass fiber systems. One goal of this project and associated work is to identify pathways that improve the cost-effectiveness of carbon fiber such that it is the reinforcement of choice in the primary structural elements of wind blades. The use of heavy-tow textile carbon fiber material systems has been shown to reduce the blade mass by 30-31% when used in the spar cap and by up to 7% when used in edgewise reinforcement. A pultrusion cost model was developed to enable a material cost comparison that includes an accurate estimate of the intermediate manufacturing step of pultrusion for the carbon fiber composite. Material cost reductions were revealed in most cases for the heavy-tow textile carbon fiber compared to infused fiberglass. The use of carbon fiber in the edgewise reinforcement produced the most notable material cost reduction of 33% for the heavy-tow textile carbon fiber. The mass and cost savings observed when using carbon fiber in edgewise reinforcement demonstrate a clear opportunity of this design approach. A carbon fiber conversion cost model was expanded to include a characterization of manufacturing costs when using advanced conversion processes with atmospheric plasma oxidation. This manufacturing approach was estimated to reduce the cost of carbon fiber material systems by greater than 10% and can be used with textile carbon systems or traditional carbon fiber precursors. The pultrusion cost model was also used to assess the opportunity for using pultruded fiberglass in wind blades, studying conventional E-glass fiber reinforcement. When using pultruded fiberglass as the spar cap material for two design classifications, the blade weight was reduced by 6% and 9% compared to infused fiberglass. However, due to the relatively large share of the pultrusion manufacturing cost compared to fiber cost, the spar cap material cost increased by 12% and 7%. When considering the system benefits of reduced blade mass and potentially lower blade manufacturing costs for pultruded composites, there may be opportunity for pultruded E-glass in wind blade spar caps, but further studies are needed. There is a clearer outcome for using pultruded fiberglass in the edgewise reinforcement where it resulted in a blade mass reduction of 2% and associated reinforcement material cost reduction of 1% compared to infused E-glass. The use of higher performing glass fibers, such as S-glass and H-glass systems, will produce greater mass savings but a study is needed to assess the cost implications for these more expensive systems. The most likely opportunity for these high-performance glass fibers is in the edgewise reinforcement, where the increased strength will reduce the damage accumulation of this fatigue-driven component. The blade design assessments in this project characterize the controlling material properties for the primary structural components in the flapwise and edgewise directions for modern wind blades. The observed trends with low and high wind speed turbine classifications for carbon and glass fiber reinforced polymer systems help to identify where cost reductions are needed, and where improvements in mechanical properties would help to reduce the material demands.
17 WIND ENERGY↗
Techno-economic analysis of offshore wind PEM water electrolysis for H 2 production
A model for producing hydrogen via offshore wind electrolysis was developed and the levelized costs of both energy and hydrogen were calculated. Here, this model calculated the cost of hydrogen produced by offshore wind and showed that the levelized cost of energy for hydrogen production and transportation to shore could be lower than for electricity transmission from offshore wind farms, using real wind data from a particular location. Therefore, direct coupling of the electrolysis system with offshore wind turbine is more advantageous than transmitting electricity to shore and then producing hydrogen via traditional electrolysis; the cost of hydrogen from offshore wind electrolysis is estimated to be $\$2.09$/kg, vs $\$3.86$/kg from traditional electrolysis using wind power.
08 HYDROGEN↗
AnnualReportingWind [SWR-26-026]
AnnualReportingWind is a version-controlled repository used to generate the cost and performance results published in major wind energy reports such as the Cost of Wind Energy Review (COWER) and the Annual Technology Baseline (ATB). The repository consolidates the model configurations, assumptions, and scripts used in each reporting year so that published results can be transparently reproduced and traced back to the exact analytical setup used in the analysis. The workflows rely on several techno-economic modeling tools developed at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), including WAVES, ORBIT, LandBOSSE, WOMBAT, and FLORIS.
Mulas Hernando, Daniel [National Laboratory of the↗
2022 Product Commercialization and Market Development Awardee: Bergey Windpower
In 2023, consumers will finance more than 80% of the residential solar energy systems they purchase, which they use as collateral (called "non-recourse loans"). Similar loans are not yet offered to fund distributed wind energy systems. To accelerate deployment of small wind systems, which power individual rural homes and farms, the United States will need to make consumer loans available at reasonable rates with modest downpayments and collateral requirements. A team led by Bergey Windpower Co. is creating new consumer financing options to reduce or eliminate the upfront cash needed to buy distributed wind energy systems. This new financing structure would decrease purchase costs for small wind turbines produced by Bergey Windpower and possibly other manufacturers. Product financing is instrumental in growing wind power market share, clean energy manufacturing, and installation jobs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Bergey Windpower's previous Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) awards have led to the development of affordable, high-performance wind turbines, microgrids, and components.
CIP↗
Development of Event-Based Data Acquisition for Acoustic Emission Monitoring of the Structural Integrity of Wind Turbine Blades [Slides]
DOE Alignment: Reduce the cost of floating offshore wind energy in deep waters to $45/MWh by 2035 from today’s estimated $150/MWh20 by: Developing operations and maintenance strategies and increasing wind turbine reliability to reduce periods of non-operation and reduce labor at sea through remote system health monitoring, inspection, and maintenance capabilities incorporating artificial intelligence and predictive maintenance.
17 WIND ENERGY↗
Acetolysis for Epoxy-Amine Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Polymer Recycling
Carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are used in many applications in the global energy transition, including for lightweighting aircraft and vehicles and in wind turbine blades, shipping containers and gas storage vessels1,2,3,4. Given the high cost and energy-intensive manufacture of CFRPs5,6,7, recycling strategies are needed that recover intact carbon fibres and the epoxy-amine resin components. Here we show that acetic acid efficiently depolymerizes both aliphatic and aromatic epoxy-amine thermosets used in CFRPs to recoverable monomers, yielding pristine carbon fibres. Deconstruction of materials from multiple sectors demonstrates the broad applicability of this approach, providing clean fibres from 2 h reactions. The optimal conditions were scaled to 80.0 g of post-consumer CFRPs, and demonstrative composites were fabricated from the recycled carbon fibres, which were recycled two more times, maintaining their strength throughout. Process modelling and techno-economic analysis, with feedstock cost informed by wind turbine blade waste generation8, indicates this method is cost effective, with a minimum selling price of US$1.50 per kg for recycled carbon fibres whereas life cycle assessment shows process greenhouse gas emissions around 99% lower than virgin carbon fibre production. Overall, this approach could enable recycling of industrial CFRPs as it provides clean, mechanically viable recycled carbon fibres and recoverable resin monomers from the thermoset.
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
A Clean Energy Korea by 2035
The current global energy crisis has massive implications for the people and economy of South Korea (Korea), where at least 90% of energy use depends on foreign fossil fuels. Clean electricity accounts for only 39% of total generation, with electricity demand expected to increase 30% by 2035. This study shows that Korea can achieve 80% clean electricity by 2035 by capitalizing on rapid technological improvements and decreasing costs of solar, wind, and battery technology. Doing so would slightly lower electricity supply costs, significantly reduce dependence on imported natural gas and coal, and dramatically cut power sector emissions. Further, this study finds that Korea’s power grid under a clean energy scenario will maintain reliability without coal generation or new natural gas plants. To realize these significant economic, environmental, and energy security benefits, policies such as an 80% clean electricity standard by 2035 and corresponding renewable energy deployment goals are required.
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
Least-Cost Pathways for India's Electric Power Sector
The Government of India has a target of deploying 175 GW from renewable energy by 2022 and 40% of electricity capacity from renewable energy by 2030 and has indicated that ambitions for 2030 could be higher. Rapid changes in technology costs and performance could drive further deployment of wind and solar capacity beyond these policy targets. Increased deployment of variable renewable energy (VRE) raises new questions for power system planning regarding the optimal siting of generation capacity, trade-offs between generation and transmission infrastructure, and system flexibility needs. This study aims to evaluate least-cost pathways for India's electric power system over the period 2017-2047. Uniquely, this work considers an expanded planning horizon and range of scenarios not previously analyzed in national planning studies in India. The data collection and model design processes undertaken for this study provides a framework for recurring planning studies. This study finds anticipated changes in electricity demand and component costs can drive a significant shift in India's future electricity supply and how this system will be operated. In the Base scenario, the share of generation from VRE reaches 54% by 2047. Reducing the capital cost of wind has a larger impact on VRE penetration than reducing the capital cost of solar PV or battery storage. In the lowest wind cost scenario (40% capital cost decline by 2047 relative to the Base scenario), the penetration of VRE in the generation mix reaches 722%, exceeding the penetration levels achieved when the cost of battery storage or solar PV are reduced by an even greater 50%. In a future system with high penetrations of RE, capacity additions are driven by the coincidence of demand and RE generation rather than peak demand alone. This study finds the system could have surplus capacity during the peak demand months of July–September because this period corresponds to periods with high wind speeds and more wind generation available to meet peak demand. By contrast, new capacity is needed to meet demand during moderate demand months of October–November when output from wind plants falls more than 75% nationally compared to the previous two months. Finally, the success for gas for electricity production may depend on cost competitiveness rather than fuel availability. Increasing the amount of gas available for electricity production had no significant impact on the capacity or generation mix by 2047, as determined from a scenario that significantly increases fuel availability throughout the planning horizon. In fact, over 80% of new gas fuel available for the power sector remains unused. This suggests the high cost of gas plant operations relative to other technologies may constrain the expansion of gas generation in India more than fuel availability.
14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
2022 System Optimization Awardee: XFlow Energy Company
Vertical-axis wind turbines offer several cost-saving advantages over traditional horizontal-axis wind turbines, including lower blade manufacturing costs and a simpler mechanical design. Unfortunately, until now, vertical configurations have not been able to match the power production and durability of more conventional horizontal-axis models. XFlow Energy Company (XFlow Energy) plans to improve the design and reduce the production costs of its 25-kilowatt (kW) vertical-axis wind turbine, delivering a levelized cost of energy that is competitive with that of U.S. retail electricity generated by coal-fired power plants. XFlow Energy's efficient turbine also is designed to maximize power production and longevity. Two previous Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) awards funded XFlow Energy's development of a 10-meter vertical-axis turbine prototype.
CIP↗
System-cost-minimizing deployment of PV-wind hybrids in low-carbon U.S. power systems
Not Available
14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
Specification Document for OC6 Phase II: Verification of an Advanced Soil-Structure Interaction Model for Offshore Wind Turbines
The Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) has developed a new macro-element model that accounts for the soil-structure interaction in offshore wind turbines. This development was done as part of the REDWIN (REDucing cost of offshore WINd by integrated structural and geotechnical design) project. The focus of Phase II of the OC6 project was to integrate REDWIN’s new soil-structure modeling capability into the coupled modeling tools that are used to design fixed-bottom offshore wind systems. The integration was then verified through a series of load cases using an example monopile-based offshore wind system examined within the WAS-XL project. This document provides the details needed to model the system examined in OC6 Phase II, using the new REDWIN modeling approach, as well as other standard modeling approaches, including apparent fixity, distributed springs, and coupled springs.
17 WIND ENERGY↗
Tools Assessing Performance
For the distributed wind industry, it can be challenging to accurately predict the performance and annual energy production of projects prior to their installation. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Tools Assessing Performance (TAP) project aims to improve wind resource characterization, thereby reducing the uncertainty of project performance and financing costs, increasing consumer confidence, and lowering the levelized cost of distributed wind energy. A collaborative effort among DOE National Laboratories, TAP will create a computational framework that provides the distributed wind community with access to newly developed wind resource data and modeling capabilities. These capabilities will allow users to perform timely and accurate performance assessments for distributed wind projects at locations across the United States.
wind, distributed, tools, performance↗
A Novel Process for Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Fuel
In this project, TDA developed a new mixed metal oxide-based sorbent that converts CO2 (captured from coal fired power plants) to CO, which can then be combined with renewable H2 generated by water electrolysis or H2 from steam methane reforming to produce different liquid fuels. TDA’s absorbent-based CO2 conversion process uses a redox process, which splits the catalytic reforming of methane with CO2 reaction into two stages: CO2 reduction to CO and CH4 reforming into H2 and CO which eliminates the equilibrium limitations. The CO produced in the two-stage reactor system can then be further reacted with renewable H2 to produce methanol, naphtha, diesel, or gasoline. We worked with the Advanced Power & Energy Program (APEP) of University of California, Irvine (UCI) to design and develop the liquid fuel synthesis process that is built around this new material. We demonstrated the techno-economic viability of the new sorbent based redox process to convert CO2 into synthesis gas by demonstrating continuous carbon dioxide reduction in a prototype test system for over 585 hours while converting up to 10 kg CO2/day. With the successful completion of the R&D effort, the technology is now ready for a larger pilot-scale demonstration and the technology readiness has been raised from TRL 3 to TRL 5. In collaboration with UCI, we completed a high-fidelity process design and economic analysis. The required sale price (RSP) for gasoline (Case 1 NG-MTG) is $4.91/gal and naphtha and diesel (Case 2 NG-FT) are $4.23/gal and $6.07/gal, respectively, on a 2011 dollar basis. To put these costs in perspective, the California prices in current dollars (with its strict specifications) for regular grade gasoline from last year to current year have varied from a low of $3.10/gal in January 2021 to a high of $5.76/gal in March 2022, while prices for diesel from last year to current year have varied from a low of $3.40/gal in January 2021 to a high of $6.41/gal in May 2022 according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency data. It should be noted that the gasoline and diesel produced by these designs of Case 1 and Case 2 would be of very high quality and both nitrogen and sulfur free. These RSPs are based on a cost of imported electricity of $64/MWh based on the low-end current wind generated electricity cost (Genevieve 2011). This cost is by far the largest component of the variable costs used in computing the RSPs. A sensitivity analysis of these RSPs to the cost of imported electricity shows that the cost of the imported electricity has a significant effect on the RSPs. The life cycle analysis (LCA) shows that the total cradle-to-gate CO2 emissions for both liquid fuels (diesel and gasoline) were negative, indicating that overall more CO2 is consumed than released during production of the fuel from CO2 feed stack for both cases (-296 kgCO2 per MT gasoline for Case 1 and -705 kgCO2 per MT diesel for Case 2). On a cradle-to-grave comparison, the use of diesel produced using TDA’s process (2,457 kgCO2 per MT diesel) would release 37.6% less CO2 compared to petroleum based diesel (3,937 kgCO2 per MT diesel) while the use of gasoline produced using TDA’s process (2,792 kgCO2 per MT gasoline) would release 29.3% less CO2 compared to petroleum based gasoline (3,946 kgCO2 per MT gasoline). With the successful completion of the R&D effort, the technology is now ready for a bench-scale demonstration and the technology readiness has been raised from TRL 3 (Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept) to TRL 5 (Laboratory scale similar system validation in relevant environment).
20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
Expert Elicitation on Wind Farm Control
Wind farm control is an active and growing field of research in which the control actions of individual turbines in a farm are coordinated, accounting for inter-turbine aerodynamic interaction, to improve the overall performance of the wind farm and to reduce costs. The primary objectives of wind farm control include increasing power production, reducing turbine loads, and providing electricity grid support services. Additional objectives include improving reliability or reducing external impacts to the environment and communities. In 2019, a European research project (FarmConners) was started with the main goal of providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in wind farm control, identifying consensus of research findings, data sets, and best practices, providing a summary of the main research challenges, and establishing a roadmap on how to address these challenges. Complementary to the FarmConners project, an IEA Wind Topical Expert Meeting (TEM) and two rounds of surveys among experts were performed. From these events we can clearly identify an interest in more public validation campaigns. Additionally, a deeper understanding of the mechanical loads and the uncertainties concerning the effectiveness of wind farm control are considered two major research gaps.
17 WIND ENERGY↗
Techno-Economic Analysis of Greenfield Geothermal Hybrid Power Plants using a Solar or Natural Gas Steam Topping Cycle
The relatively low generation costs associated with wind, solar PV, and natural gas power plants make it challenging for geothermal power plants to produce and sell the power that has the reliability and sustainability characteristics that are greatly needed in US power markets. This is especially true for geothermal resources with low to medium temperatures, which results in relatively low thermal efficiency and generation costs that are higher than those for wind, solar PV, and natural gas. This analysis evaluates solar thermal- and natural gas combustion waste heat recovery-based topping cycle hybridization of geothermal binary power plants. This approach provides several benefits that may allow geothermal power plants to generate power at more competitive costs. First, the addition of solar thermal energy or natural gas combustion waste heat input to a geothermal power plant provides additional heat input that can be converted to electrical power. Second, the temperature level of the heat obtained from concentrating solar collectors or natural gas combustion exhaust is higher than that of geothermal heat, which provides opportunities for improving the efficiency of the conversion of thermal energy to electrical power. Third, the ease with which solar thermal systems integrate with energy storage and the flexibility of natural gas means power generation can occur during peak demand periods.
14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
Techno-Economic Analysis of Greenfield Geothermal Hybrid Power Plants using a Solar or Natural Gas Steam Topping Cycle
The relatively low generation costs associated with wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), and natural-gas power plants make it challenging for geothermal power plants to produce and sell the power that has the reliability and sustainability characteristics that are greatly needed in U.S. power markets. This is especially true for geothermal resources with low-to-medium temperatures, which results in relatively low-thermal efficiency and generation costs that are higher than those for wind, solar PV, and natural gas. This analysis evaluates solar thermal- and natural-gas combustion waste heat recovery-based topping cycle hybridization of geothermal binary power plants. This approach provides several benefits that may allow geothermal power plants to generate power at more competitive costs. First, the addition of solar thermal energy or natural-gas combustion waste heat input to a geothermal power plant provides additional heat input that can be converted to electrical power. Second, the temperature level of the heat obtained from concentrating solar collectors or natural-gas combustion exhaust is higher than that of geothermal heat, which provides opportunities for improving the efficiency of the conversion of thermal energy to electrical power. Third, the ease with which solar thermal systems integrate with energy storage and the flexibility of natural gas means power generation can occur during peak demand periods. The hybrid cycles are compared to equivalently sized, co-located, independent geothermal, concentrating solar, and/or natural-gas power plants. The hybrid cycle tends to produce slightly more power than the standalone plants combined. However, the hybrid plant Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is slightly higher than the LCOE of the combined standalone power plants for each of the case study locations investigated. Using the steam-topping cycle, organic Rankine cycle (ORC)-bottoming cycle hybrid plant design to combine a solar thermal resource and low- temperature geothermal resource (<120 degrees C) leads to a hybrid plant with a lower LCOE than a standalone geothermal-only system. Thus, hybrid plants may enable the economic development of geothermal resources in locations with low geothermal resource temperatures. However, in areas with higher geothermal resource temperatures (>120 degrees C), the geothermal-only plant has a lower LCOE than the hybrid cycle and thus could be developed without the need for solar heat addition. iv A geothermal-natural-gas reciprocating engine hybrid plant was evaluated for an Elk Hills, California case study location. The Elk Hills case study analysis indicates that when the natural-gas engine operates for more than 12 hours per day the hybrid plant can produce power at an LCOE lower than a standalone geothermal plant, and comparable to that of the standalone natural-gas reciprocating engine, while also reducing the carbon intensity of the power generated relative to the standalone natural-gas engine. This may represent a scenario in which the hybrid plant provides an opportunity for the deployment of a low-temperature geothermal resource that otherwise may have an LCOE too high to develop and operate as a standalone resource, while also reducing the carbon intensity of natural-gas generation sources. A "triple-hybrid" plant that combines natural gas, solar thermal, thermal energy storage, and geothermal was also investigated. A natural-gas combustion turbine (NGCT) is added to the geothermal-solar hybrid such that the hot exhaust gas from the gas turbine provides an alternative source of heat to the steam turbine of the hybrid cycle. Analysis results suggest that the triple-hybrid plant has a significantly higher energy generation and revenue than a standalone NGCT or the original geothermal-solar hybrid. The triple-hybrid design benefits most from using a smaller solar field so that the solar energy can be dispatched at the most valuable times available. The triple-hybrid plant also has a lower LCOE than the standalone NGCT. The triple-hybrid plant was evaluated making simple assumptions about the dispatch profile of the gas cycle, and more nuanced and realistic dispatching schedules should be analyzed in future work.
15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗