2015 Distributed Wind Market Report

Abstract

Between 2003 and the end of 2015, over 75,000 wind turbines, totaling 934 MW in cumulative capacity, were deployed in distributed applications across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 2015, 28 states added 28 MW of new distributed wind capacity, representing 1,713 turbine units and $102 million in investment. While the number of units installed increased slightly, capacity additions and investments decreased compared to 2014, when 63.6 MW of new distributed wind capacity from nearly 1,700 turbines was added, representing $170 million in investment across 24 states. In 2015, 4.3 MW of small wind (turbines up through 100 kW) was deployed in the United States, representing 1,695 units and over $21 million in investment. This is slightly higher than in 2014 (3.7 MW of small wind, approximately 1,600 units, and $20 million in investment), but down from 2013 (5.6 MW, approximately 2,700 units, and $36 million investment). U.S. small wind manufacturers accounted for nearly 100% of 2015 domestic small wind sales. A total of 23.7 MW of capacity was installed in 2015 using turbines greater than 100 kW in distributed applications. Three of the five manufacturers and suppliers of these turbines, representing 9.4 MW and ten turbine units, were not based in the United States. A total of 14.3 MW and eight turbine units were from the two U.S.-based manufacturers or suppliers. Ohio, Nebraska, and Connecticut led the United States in new distributed wind power capacity additions in 2015 as a result of larger project installations in those states. California, New York, and Minnesota led the nation for small wind capacity deployment in 2015.

Techno‐economic comparison of rooftop‐mounted PVs and small wind turbines: a case study for Brussels

“…However, the LCOE values from Fig. 5 are comparable with ground-based references (0.13-0.31 EUR/kWh and 0.04-0.39 EUR/kWh) [46,47].…”

“…This analysis is performed to simulate the higher cost of a roof installation as well as a possible cost reduction caused by a growing market. It also expresses the current cost uncertainty of SWT [45, 46].…”

“…Wind turbines: The cost of an SWT is presently on average 5450 EUR/kW (investment cost) both in the US and the UK [45, 46]. One can expect that building‐mounted turbines will have a higher cost of installation than a ground‐mounted turbine.…”

Virtual Energy Storage Sharing and Capacity Allocation

“…Such complementary charge and discharge profiles can arise in practice due to the diverse load and renewable generation profiles of end users. Specifically, as the most promising sources of clean and sustainable energy, solar and wind energy have both been increasingly adopted by households, commercial buildings, and residential communities [5] [6]. Studies in [7]- [9] showed that solar and wind energy exhibit diverse and locational-dependent generation profiles.…”

“…The quadratic programming problem can be efficiently solved by the interior point method[39] 14. Though the installation of wind turbines faces geographical restrictions, technological innovations (such as vertical axis wind turbines) have promoted the adoption of wind energy for households, commercial building, and residential communities[6] [42][43]. Therefore, to capture a more complete picture of renewable energy deployment in practice, we consider both solar energy and wind energy in our simulation.…”