Energy Department’s Competitiveness Improvement Projects Deliver Substantial Cost Reductions in the U.S. Distributed Wind Industry

July 15, 2017

North American Clean Energy reports that manufacturers and developers of distributed wind systems “face the challenge of developing next-generation technologies capable of delivering electricity at a levelized cost of energy competitive with rapidly declining costs for solar photovoltaics and other distributed generation options.” To help distributed wind compete with other sources of distributed generation, the Energy Department's Wind Energy Technologies Office launched the Competitiveness Improvement Project in 2013, issuing annual solicitations and awarding cost-shared contracts to manufacturers to optimize their designs for increased performance, develop advanced manufacturing processes, or complete certification of a turbine’s system performance. In four rounds of annual solicitations, the Energy Department has awarded $3.6 million to 16 projects with nine manufacturers, leveraging an additional $2 million in awardee cost-share.