2. cant role in making wind energy-as a whole- more cost effective
and viable. A plethora of international programs, partnerships
and alliances along with innovative R&D activities in cooperation
with industry and and academy have helped make wind energy
more sustainable and reliable in terms of power generation and
operability. Looking forward, much of the world has ambitious
plans to expand wind energy development, mainly offshore, that
will require specific R&D and challenges to accomplish. Achieving
these ambitious goals will require strategic collaborations and R&D
funding plans, carefully directed to the topics and mechanisms
most likely to accelerate wind energy deployment.
Increasing the name-plate capacity of wind turbines and their
size, leasing greenfield areas and their deployment on land, and im-
plementing new technologies for reliable performance in offshore
conditions have introduced design, supply chain, procurement
and engineering challenges, networking barriers, and social and
environmental issues that today’s and future researchers should
investigate and solve for the pace of development to continue.
Academic education and training, play and have to play a vi-
tal role in the development and integration of the wind power
industry. Innovation and collaboration are high priorities for every
modern society, and are key factors in its vision to build more
reliable, technical feasible, economic viable and sustainable energy
solutions. Education itself, one of the powerful means to balance
intellectualism and craftsmanship, plays a critical role in the de-
velopment of new methods, tools and mechanisms in wind power
industry.
Previous surveys show that organizations that innovate and
work synergistically are more profitable and have greater business
competitive edge compared with these firms that prefer more
secrecy in their strategic objectives. When an organization or a
firm is working together with researchers from the Academy could:
• develop new ideas, products and services for the market
• get expert advice and access to the latest knowledge, technol-
ogy and equipment
• have access to skilled and work-ready researchers
• gain access to national and international knowledge networks
• lead to new funding schemes and modern research modeling-
surveying - infrastructure
From the other point of view, also the benefits for researchers
working with businesses means the opportunity to:
• contribute to knowledge sharing and value creaation
• produce high quality and relevant research that translates
directly into commercial outcomes
• develop new ideas, products and services for the market
• produce research leading to greater social, economic and en-
vironmental impact
• improve graduate outcomes and effective knowledge transfer
• build valuable contacts and networks
• build a reputation as a world-class research institution open
to business
However, currently (2015), most engineers in Europe’s wind
power industry do not have systematic education background
relating to wind energy. The rapid growth of the huge wind energy
market-especially offshore- drives more and more people to work
in this sector. According the report of the UK’s Royal Academy of
Engineering, research and development should be targeted to the
topics identified by the experts as research prioritizes. The overall
scope of future research is to facilitate the portfolio management
and project development of cost-effective and technical realizable
wind power plants that can be connected to the smart grid, with
the minimum environmental impact.
Research Priorities
Europe is focusing heavily on offshore wind power development.
Three countries — Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom,
are spearheading this drive. The European Wind Energy Associ-
ation (EWEA) road-map is projecting that offshore wind power
plants will increase the overall installed capacity to 40-50 GW in
2020 from 6.5 GW in 2013. Various options are being examined to
improve the technology for installing wind turbines. At present,
wind turbines are anchored to the seabed in water depths not
exceeding 30 meters. Research studies and simulation modeling
tests are being conducted on artificial platforms and wind turbines
on floating foundations anchored at depths of up to 60 meters.
To reduce investment costs, researchers are also looking into the
possibility of using existing offshore oil industry’s techniques and
lessons learned. More than 100 research priorities were proposed
from the industry’s experts and the topics of these proposed pri-
orities were divided according to short-tern (0–5 years), mid-term
(5–10 years), or long-term (10–20 years) time scale.
Figure 2 Wind Power Research Priorities.
Despite the fact that the European wind power industry has
been experiencing rapid growth in demand as a result of the con-
secutive incentive policy issued by the central governments there
2 | Stavros Philipp Thomas et al.
3. is a significant gap of the available engineers, scientists and re-
searchers. Education across the Academic institutions and training
centers carries several vital functions including: promotion of
public awareness, development of consumer confidence, training
technical support staff, training of engineers, and training of policy
analysts and development of policies that facilitate the industry as
a whole.
Currently, many engineers and project managers in Europe’s
wind power industry do not have systematic education back-
ground relating to wind energy. EWEA suggests that, every 10 MW
wind power could create 35-45 job opportunities. As of December
2014, installed capacity of wind power in the European Union
totaled 128,751 megawatts (MW). The European Wind Energy As-
sociation estimates that 230 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity will
be installed in Europe by 2020, consisting of 190 GW onshore and
40 GW offshore.. This means that Europe’s annual new installed
capacity will reach 18,000 MW by 2020 and thus, the wind power
industry will create approximately 50,000 - 60,000 new jobs every
year from 2015 to 2020. For example, Enercon, one of the biggest
wind turbine manufacturer, has planned to recruit more than 1000
graduates from universities between 2015-2020 while Dong Energy,
the largest offshore redeveloper in the world is continuously hiring
wind power experts and graduates and running innovative con-
cepts (Engineer the Future). However, wind power industry faces
the problem of lacking skilled professionals with proper experi-
ences in wind energy. Academies and training centers can offer
systematic and structural knowledge to people to know how to
manage the wind power equipment and identify the associated
risks and uncertainties related to the transportation, installation,
operation and maintenance.
EDUCATION IN ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS
As the global wind power industry grows in geographic distribu-
tion, project size and complexity, there is a corresponding need
for professionals to lead interdisciplinary wind power projects to
successful completion. The education of wind energy, one of the
most important energy resources, is still a newborn area in Eu-
rope’s education system. However, some universities and colleges
realized the importance of wind energy education for a sustainable
wind power industry and they already offer undergraduate, mas-
ter and doctor programmes. By 23 May 2015, there are almost 100
EU approved Master programs offering colleges and universities
(excluding the independent colleges).
Many of the Academic Institutions offer courses on sustainable
energy-which is a more generic study direction with partial wind
power studies. The courses in renewable energy, such as hydro
energy, thermal and wind are popular for a long time in Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian and int he Netherlands universities including
KTH Royal Institute of Technology at Stockholm, Sweden, Tech-
nical University of Denmark at Lyngby, Aalborg University in
Denamrk, Uppsala University, Chalmers University of Technology
at Gothenburg, Sweden, Delft University of Technology at Delft,
Netherlands, FH Aachen - University of Applied Sciences, the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) and many
others.
It is also very critical to understand that there are many concerns
because of the shortage of engineers with wind energy education
background. This phenomenon operates as a bottleneck for the de-
velopment and integration of wind energy in Europe and because
of this matter more and more universities provide undergradu-
ate programmes in wind energy. Especially for the universities
locating in the regions which are rich in wind energy potential.
However, the majority of these programs are conducted in their
country of origin language and thus, international applicants could
not follow the study line in these institutions.
Tertiary Education Statistics and Facts
For students studying in European universities , there are two
types of master programmes. One is full-time, another is part-time.
Many graduates choose the latter one in spite of the fact that it
usually needs 3-4 years to finish. The Erasmus programme was
one of the most well-known European programmes and ran for
just over a quarter of a century; in 2014 it was superseded by the
Erasmus+ programme.
In the field of higher education, Erasmus+ gives students and
staff opportunities to develop their skills and boost their employ-
ment prospects. Students can study abroad for up to 12 months
(during each cycle of tertiary education). Around 2 million higher
education students are expected to take part in Erasmus+ dur-
ing the 2014–20 period, including 25 thousand students in joint
masters’ programmes.
The EU-28 had just over 20 million tertiary education students
in 2014 (see Figure 3). Five EU Member States reported 2.0 million
tertiary education students or more in 2014, namely Germany, the
United Kingdom, France, Poland and Spain; tertiary education
student numbers in Italy were just below this level and together
these six countries accounted for two thirds of all EU-28 students
in tertiary education.
Approximately 4.8 million students graduated from tertiary
education establishments in the EU-28 in 2014. An analysis of the
number of graduates by field of education shows that 34.4 % had
studied social sciences, business and law; this share was higher
than the equivalent share (32.8 %) of tertiary education students
still in the process of studying within this field, suggesting that
less students had started this type of study in recent years, or
that either drop-out rates or average course lengths were higher
in other fields. A similar situation was observed for health and
welfare, which made up 15.5 % of graduates from 14.3 % of the
tertiary education student population, as well as the smaller field of
services studies. The reverse situation was observed for the other
fields of education, most notably for engineering, manufacturing
and construction-related studies, humanities and arts, and science,
mathematics and computing.
Across the EU-28, one third (32.8 %) of the students in tertiary
education were studying social sciences, business or law in 2012,
with more female (3.9 million) than male (2.8 million) students in
this field of education, as shown in Figure 4. The second largest
number of students by field of education was in engineering, man-
ufacturing and construction-related studies which accounted for
15.0 % of all students in tertiary education; three quarters of the
students in this field were male. The third largest field of study was
health and welfare, with 14.3 % of all tertiary education students;
close to three quarters of the students in this field were female.
Education in training centers
The shortage of professionals in wind power sector has led to a
rapid increase in demand for wind energy specialists. In Europe’s
wind power industry, most recently graduated engineers are not
well trained on wind energy technologies and application and
there is also a lack of experience in manage and operate wind
power projects. There is therefore an urgent need to develop,
implement and share new training courses that should provide en-
gineers, scientists, technical staff, policy makers, owners, operators
and planners constructive knowledge. Some training centers offer
Volume X August 2015 | This is a part of a confidential work | 3
4. Figure 3 Students in tertiary education, by field of education and sex, EU-28, 2015.
Figure 4 Graduates from tertiary education, by field of education, EU-28, 2015.
4 | Stavros Philipp Thomas et al.
5. professionals short-term mid-career training on the topics such
as wind resource assessment (RISO DTU) system design (Danish
Wind Power Academy), risks management (DNV GL) mainte-
nance, installation, etc. They offer on-the-job training as well as the
conventional face-to-face training in wind energy for people who
are not willing to quit job to study for several years as full-time
students.
Table bellow summarises opportunities to future wind energy
projects because of the knowledge and experience received in
training centers. Much of the opportunity to drive down costs is
perceived to be in the design and performance of wind turbines,
O&M strategies and manufacturing innovations anticipated to
help reduce the cost of wind energy.
STRUCTURAL RESEARCH NEEDS TO ACCELERATE
WIND ENERGY DEVELOPMENT
Research and development has a vital role to play if the potential of
wind energy is to be fully exploited. Policy metrics, a set of reliable
and cost effective regulations, efficient IEC standards should con-
tribute to faster deployment and integration. However, investment
in wind power R&D will not be delivered by market signals alone;
extensive support at the national and international levels is needed
to accelerate the development of wind energy technologies and
facilitate the implementation of innovative solutions.
At the I E A’s 35th meeting of experts regarding the Long term
R&D needs for the wind energy industry in Stockholm, Sweden
a wind power investor and developer mentioned: "There is a
consensus on the view that there still is a need for generic long-term
research. The main goal for research is to support the implementation
of national/international visions for wind energy in the near and far
future. It was the opinion that it is possible to reach this goal for the near
future with available knowledge and technology. However, large-scale
implementation of wind energy requires a continued cost reduction and
an improved acceptability and reliability. In order to achieve a 10 to 20%
part of the worldwide energy consumption provided by wind, major steps
have to be taken. The technology of turbines, of wind power stations, of
grid connection and grid control, the social acceptability and the economy
of wind power in a liberalized market, all have to be improved in order
to provide a reliable and sustainable contribution to the energy supply.
It is for this objective that there is a need for long- term R&D. Besides
that, there is also a need for a short-to mid-term research that mainly is
in the interest of utilities/manufacturing industries and to some extent to
society.
It is true, that during the last ten years, R&D has put emphasis
on developing larger and more reliable in terms of quality and
availability wind turbine systems utilising knowledge developed
from national and international R&D programs. Thus, continued
research is a fundamental component for the overall Cost of En-
ergy mitigation and technology improvement. Continued R&D
will support the design and implementation of new proposals
and mechanisms-tools as well as incremental improvements. Re-
searchers around the globe investigate the aspects and impacts
of extreme wind phenomena, aerodynamics, load effects, electri-
cal generation, supply chain and procurement excellence. This
research has resulted in larger and more sophisticated machines,
improved component performance, optimized supply chain and
accessibility structure and reduced O&M costs.
However, significant opportunities remain to reduce wind
power plant LCOE and increase further the deployment of wind
energy. Exploiting these opportunities will require multi-year
research programs and strong collaborations between research in-
stitutions and industry from many countries to study how a wind
power plant system performs as a whole, and to optimise the per-
formance and cost associated with the operation and maintenance.
In the first years of R&D, research academies and universities
produced more knowledge than the industry could handle. Re-
search was mainly aimed at applying existing knowledge to the
field of wind energy. Nowadays, automatic portfolio management
systems and offshore applications produce more uncertainties and
risks than the researchers can solve with current knowledge. Fu-
ture research should be conducted to address the specific problems
related to wind engineering technology.
TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGES
Nowadays, offshore wind turbines installed generally in the range
between 3 and 5 MW although prototypes of power up to 7 MW
and even higher are currently tested (Only a few months after its
sales launch at the EWEA Offshore trade show in Copenhagen,
the new Siemens offshore flagship wind turbine of the type SWT-
7.0-154 has now been installed as a prototype), indicating the man-
ufacturing trends concerning future wind turbines operating in
maritime environments. On top of that, wind farms’ total capacity
has increased as well. Before 2000, average wind farm size was
below 20 MW. Today, the experience has grown significantly so
that many countries are building large (average size of projects
exceeds 150 MW), utility-scale offshore wind farms or at least have
plans to do so.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of the existing large-scale com-
mercial projects still use shallow-water technology (located at less
than 30 m water depth) although the idea of going deeper is gradu-
ally moving closer towards implementation. Actually, the average
water depth remains below 20 m, (excluding the first full scale
floating wind turbine (Hywind) which was installed in 2009 off the
Norwegian coast at a water depth of 220 m. On the other hand, the
average distance from shore ten years ago was below 5 km, while
today is close to 30 km—confirming that offshore wind turbines
are installed increasingly away from the shores.
A. Production
Another important input parameter in the economic viability of
the project is the expected power production. As sufficient wind
speeds and capacity factor at the project site are the main drivers
of wind energy production and of wind park revenues, the un-
derstanding and forecast of wind become essential. Therefore, a
lot of effort must be put into assessing the wind energy resource
at the given project site with the highest prediction accuracy and
by taking into consideration the reliable numbers for the capacity
factors.
In general, actual capacity factors for onshore wind farms oscil-
late across time and regions, with an average value being between
20 and 30%. For instance, the average European value between
2003 and 2009 has been recorded at about 21%. The highest values
have been recorded for Greece and the UK (i.e. equal to 29.3%
and 26%, respectively) due to the existence of many low density
population areas which benefit of high wind speeds and enable
the siting of wind farms.
On the other hand, offshore sites may have the ability to demon-
strate quite higher capacity factors than onshore counterparts (as a
result of the higher mean power coefficient which is usually met
in offshore installations), typically ranging from 20% to 40%. One
may see that capacity factor values, in some cases, even reached
50%, however, this is not the rule since there are cases where the
recorded capacity factor may be quite low mainly as a result of the
Volume X August 2015 | This is a part of a confidential work | 5
6. I Table 1 Risk-consequence illustration for wind energy projects
Possible risk factors Consequence Proposed Solution
The resourcing constraints of manufacturers. The lack of experienced staff could risk the
quality of manufacture and testing.
Third-party inspection services during manu-
facture and inspection will help meet specifi-
cations and deadlines.
Equipment survival in offshore environments. Equipment might have a reduced life span. Operation and Maintenance metrologies and
Strategic improvements .
Lack of experience of offshore structures
(fixed or floating) and foundations
There is a danger of over or under design,
leading to unplanned project costs or even
failure.
Staff training and critical thinking improvement
via experiences.
New designs are required, for example in-
creased turbine size or device prototype.
The lack of experienced staff could risk design
quality.
Testing of components, including turbine
blades and converters improvements through
research and testing.
combination of extended downtimes due to several system failures
and the tough conditions usually met in marine environments.
The traditional approach for gathering wind data is to construct
a meteorological mast equipped with anemometers. However, in
the offshore environment this practice is both difficult and expen-
sive to implement. Nowadays, a plethora of devices is available.
WINDCUBE and FLidar, the floating LiDAR technology are just
between the most famous innovative solutions to these problems.
FLiDAR can measure wind at turbine hub-height and provide
accurate and reliable data on wind speed, wind direction, and
turbulence. Additional sensors can be integrated onto the buoy to
achieve a full environmental assessment of the location.
Figure 5 Wind distribution assumption and turbine choice
B. AEP Uncertainty Estimation
Model uncertainty relates to the uncertainty of the parameters
estimated based on the wind study. Consequently, while wind
studies are often based on very complex models, there is a risk that
they contain estimation errors, such as measurement errors and/or
model errors. Measurement errors include that measured wind
characteristics may not be correct due to for example dysfunctional
measurement instruments or incorrect calibration of these. Model
errors for example relate to the risk that measured historical wind
conditions are not representative of the future wind conditions.
Furthermore, the wind study may be wrong with respect to
assessing the effect a turbine has on the turbine specific production
of the turbine behind it, which is called wake effects. The size of the
wake effects is affected by factors such as wind speed, wind density,
turbulence and distance between turbines, meaning that wake
effects may be larger when the wind is coming from a direction in
which turbines are located closer to each other. We consider model
uncertainty as a static uncertainty, which means that it is fixed over
time. This implies that if the wind study has underestimated the
true wind average speed or wake effects for the first operational
year, it will be underestimated in all years. Consequently, taking
wind study uncertainty into account, we reach static P75 and P90
measures that are fixed over the life of the project.
At figure 5, we illustrate how different P measures are affected
by how wind variability is taken into account (whether wind vari-
ability is averaged or not). The blue line illustrates production
uncertainty when all production uncertainty is considered on an
average basis, while the green line illustrates production uncer-
tainty when wind variability is based on short-term uncertainty.
Figure 6 AEP and Uncertainty. The graph is based on a 2.3MW
turbine
C. Technical Availability and Accessibility
The technical availability of a wind turbine depends, among others,
on: The technological status (experience gain effect throughout
the years) of the installation at the time it went online (increasing
experience in both production and operation issues in the offshore
sector suggests that the failure rate decreases and the reliability
increases respectively). The technical availability changes (aging
effect) during the installation’s operational life.
The accessibility difficulties (accessibility effect) of the wind
farm under investigation. This parameter is, as aforementioned,
of special interest for offshore wind parks, especially during win-
ter, due to bad weather conditions (high winds and huge waves
suspend the ship departure, thus preventing maintenance and
6 | Stavros Philipp Thomas et al.
7. repair of the existing wind turbines). Nowadays, contemporary
land-based wind turbines and wind farms reach availability levels
of 98% or even more (Kaldellis, 2002, 2004; Harman et al., 2008)
but, once these wind turbines are placed offshore the accessibility
may be significantly restricted, thus causing a considerable impact
to the availability of the wind farm and in turn to the energy and
economic performance of the whole project.
This is not always the case however; apart from the distance
from the shore, the accessibility to a wind farm’s installation site
depends also on several other parameters such as local climate
conditions and the type and availability of the maintenance strat-
egy adopted (the limited size of some wind farms does not always
justify the purchase of a purpose built vessel so there may be
significant delays if the vessel is, for example, away for another
assignment). Thus, there are cases where the impact may be more
or less significant than the expected one.
A case with low recorded availability is North Hoyle offshore
wind farm, which is located in the UK, at an average distance from
the shore equal to 8 km (see also Table 3 where recorded availability
data for several wind farms are presented). As it is mentioned in
(BERR, 2005), the availability of this wind farm during a one-year
period (2004–2005) was recorded equal to 84The most notable
sources of unplanned maintenance and downtime have occurred
due to termination of cable burial and rock dumping activities
as well as high-voltage cable and generator faults. It is worth
mentioning that the downtime recorded splits to 66% owed to
turbine failure, 12% to construction activities, 5% to scheduled
maintenance and 17% to site inaccessibility due to harsh weather
conditions.
Another example with even lower availability (67%) is the case
of Barrow offshore wind farm (see also Table 1), also located about
8 km far from shore, in the UK. The total average availability of
this project is quoted as 67% for one-year period between July 2006
and June 2007. This low availability is due to a number of wind
turbine faults, mainly generator bearings and rotor cable faults
combined with low access to the site because of high waves during
that time period.
EDUCATION AND R&D CHALLEGES
Currently, public and private universities are the fundamental
force of knowledge creation and value sharing in wind energy
education. The number of training centers is still small in South
Eastern countries compare to the Scandinavian countries but the
overall number is small in relation to the increasing demand of
wind power industry. The main weakness of university education
is that the programmes usually take longer time and lack of enough
flexibility while some others offer generic studies programs with
no strong directions in wind energy applications.
Undergraduate programmes need four years (English Lan-
guage lessons are offered by a very small number), Masters two
years and doctoral programme need at least three years. The re-
sults show that the industry may not afford to wait for years until
students get their degree and leave their campus. Consequently,
almost every company hires a number of recent graduated employ-
ees without proper education background or experience. These
new employees should also have the opportunity to take further
training in specific topics of wind energy to be able to meet the
challenges of every day tasks.
A lot of companies also expect their employees can get some
regular short-term courses every year but the limited number of
wind energy training centers in EU are in huge demand by the
wind power industry. According to the EWEA, the number of
jobs in the sector is expected to increase to 520,000 by the end
of the decade, a rise of 200% from the number of jobs currently
available in the market, and 24,000 more jobs than predicted in
a 2009 EWA report. Most of these jobs should require expertise
wind energy education background. It is a huge market drive for
training centers and Academies. Obviously the number of wind
energy training centers and courses offered is inadequate and they
should be further expanded and strengthened to meet the new
demands.
Engineering and technology are covered in most of EU-28 wind
energy education. There is little number of degrees about wind
power policies, planning, economics, industry structure, risks iden-
tification and management, environmental impact and protection,
supply chain and procurement excellence. Almost all of those
EU universities which offer wind energy education can deliver
wind energy courses only on wind engineering and science. Train-
ing centers only provide skill training courses for technicians and
engineers and thus, it is necessary to layer this gap as soon as
possible.
Almost all of the wind energy education and training in EU
requires participants attending to campus. It creates a dramatic
dilemma for people who might want to change their career path,
because they usually would like to know more on wind power
before making decision. They are considering to enter this new
area but not willing to change their jobs in a rush. In this case,
Distance Learning courses is an excellent tool for teaching persons
off campus however, this type of education courses should not
be considered among the most effective ways to get a systematic
wind energy education-knowledge.
CONCLUSIONS
There is a shortage of qualified professionals in EU wind power in-
dustry, such as policy analysts, procurement specialists, scientists,
researchers, and engineers.
The lack of new people with wind power knowledge is an issue
currently, and will be even more a problematic aspect so in the
future, as the proportion of development, operation, maintenance,
procurement, supply chain and risks management jobs will grow
in the wind industry. To circumvent these chaotic phenomenon,
this article recommends introducing industry experience into train-
ing and education, thus mitigating the theoretical knowledge and
optimizing the technical experience. Industry and academic insti-
tutions could jointly fund research projects, develop engagement
platforms, industrial scholarships opportunities and doctoral pro-
grams.
In addition, a muti-directional and polysynthetic framework
is needed to coordinate the synergies between industry and
academia, to harmonize vocational education and training, estab-
lish an effective Intellectual Property Rights Strategy and increase
open innovation. By taking these strategic steps and establish-
ing that the European wind energy industry has access to a well
trained, critical thinking and creative workforce, wind energy will
be able to continue to play a fundamental role in the transition to
a renewable and sustainable energy system and last but not least,
boost economic growth and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Volume X August 2015 | This is a part of a confidential work | 7
8. I Table 2 Risk-consequence illustration for wind energy projects
Possible risk factors Consequence Proposed Solution
The resourcing constraints of manufacturers. The lack of experienced staff could risk the
quality of manufacture and testing.
Third-party inspection services during manu-
facture and inspection will help meet specifi-
cations and deadlines.
Equipment survival in offshore environments. Equipment might have a reduced life span. Operation and Maintenance metrologies and
Strategic improvements .
Lack of experience of offshore structures
(fixed or floating) and foundations
There is a danger of over or under design,
leading to unplanned project costs or even
failure.
Staff training and critical thinking improvement
via experiences.
New designs are required, for example in-
creased turbine size or device prototype.
The lack of experienced staff could risk design
quality.
Testing of components, including turbine
blades and converters improvements through
research and testing.
I Table 3 Roadmap Strategic Approach
Key Themes Issues Addressed Wind Vision Study Scenario Roadmap Action Areas*
Collaboration to reduce wind
costs through wind technology
capital and operating cost reduc-
tions, increased energy capture,
improved reliability, and develop-
ment of planning and operating
practices for cost effective wind
integration.
Continuing declines in wind
power costs and improved reliabil-
ity are needed to improve market
competition with other electricity
sources.
Levelized cost of electricity reduc-
tion trajectory of 24% by 2020,
33% by 2030, and 37% by 2050
for land-based wind power tech-
nology and 22% by 2020, 43% by
2030, and 51% by 2050 for off-
shore wind power technology to
substantially reduce or eliminate
the near- and mid-term incremen-
tal costs of the Study Scenario.
• Wind Power Resources and Site
Characterization • Wind Plant
Technology Advancement • Sup-
ply Chain, Manufacturing, and
Logistics • Wind Power Perfor-
mance, Reliability, and Safety •
Wind Electricity Delivery and In-
tegration • Wind Siting and Per-
mitting • Collaboration, Education,
and Outreach • Workforce Devel-
opment • Policy Analysis
Collaboration to increase market
access to U.S. wind resources
through improved power system
flexibility and transmission expan-
sion, technology development,
streamlined siting and permitting
processes, and environmental
and competing use research and
impact mitigation.
Continued reduction of deploy-
ment barriers as well as en-
hanced mitigation strategies to re-
sponsibly improve market access
to remote, low wind speed, off-
shore, and environmentally sensi-
tive locations.
Capture the enduring value of
wind power by analyzing job
growth opportunities, evaluating
existing and proposed policies,
and disseminating credible infor-
mation.
• Supply Chain, Manufacturing,
and Logistics • Collaboration, Ed-
ucation, and Outreach • Work-
force Development • Policy Anal-
ysis
Levelized cost of electricity reduc-
tion trajectory of 24% by 2020,
33% by 2030, and 37% by 2050
for land-based wind power tech-
nology and 22% by 2020, 43% by
2030, and 51% by 2050 for off-
shore wind power technology to
substantially reduce or eliminate
the near- and mid-term incremen-
tal costs of the Study Scenario
Wind deployment sufficient to en-
able national wind electricity gen-
eration shares of 1020% by 2030,
and 35% by 2050.
A sustainable and competitive re-
gional and local wind industry
supporting substantial domestic
employment. Public benefits from
reduced emissions and consumer
energy cost savings.
Wind Power Resources and Site
Characterization • Wind Plant
Technology Advancement • Sup-
ply Chain, Manufacturing, and Lo-
gistics • Wind Electricity Delivery
and Integration • Wind Siting and
Permitting • Collaboration, Educa-
tion, and Outreach • Policy Analy-
sis
8 | Stavros Philipp Thomas et al.
