Wind Energy Technologies Office

Power systems around the world are undergoing a major transformation because of the increasing shares of renewable energy, growing deployment of energy storage systems, proliferation of distributed energy resources, electrification of other sectors, and so on. In the United States, wind and solar provided almost 10% of electricity in 2019. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in its 2020 Annual Energy Outlook, forecasted that the share of electricity from renewables will reach 38% by 2050, of which more than 80% will come from wind and solar. Wind and solar, along with battery energy storage systems, interface with the grid using power electronic inverters; hence, they are collectively referred to as inverter-based resources (IBRs). The increasing annual share of electricity from IBRs in a power system means that during more times of the year, the system will operate at a much higher concentration of IBRs. Figure 1 presents the hourly share of wind and solar generation in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system in Texas in 2019. While the annual wind share was at 20%, the instantaneous percentage share was much higher. Moments of high shares of IBRs (>50%) will continue to grow as more IBRs will be deployed in a power system.

This article introduces ways to identify dynamic system models using measurement data. In power system analysis, a static model represents the time-invariant input–output relationship of a system, while a dynamic model describes the behavior of the system over time. For example, how will a system transit from one steady-state operation point to another?

Capacity planning models and resource adequacy assessments have often relied on averaging and sampling techniques that disregard important reasonably expected interactions of weather-based resources. We provide a method to capture the economic value of information and reliability risk from using inadequate sample data to design sustainable systems with high renewable generation. Analysis of long run portfolio cost and sources of uncertainty shows as much as a 16% system cost increase with a 38-fold increase in expected unserved energy when average renewable outputs are modeled rather than a 10 year hourly coincident sample, which illustrates the pitfalls of averaging data and ignoring temporal interdependencies. Investment recommendations can significantly differ depending on which years and how many years are included in the analysis. We show that selecting the wrong year can increase system costs by over 4% with a 7-fold increase in expected unserved energy, failing to meet planned reliability and renewable design targets. It is possible for a single year of coincident load-wind-solar data to reasonably approximate system characteristics; however, the best year changes with renewable penetration.

Offshore wind has become one of the fastest growing energy resources in the electric power grids of several countries around the world. With the technical potential of 71 TW of global offshore wind, only 59 GW were installed at the end of 2022, indicating significant growth potential in the future. Europe, China, and the United States are leading the global offshore wind development, with ambitious offshore wind targets exceeding 400 GW by 2050.

This presentation offers a high-level overview of the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project's (ETIPP's) work in Eastport, Maine. It covers the project's work to explore microgrid options for the island community; opportunities for incorporating renewable energy technology such as tidal power, solar power, and battery storage; potential benefits and costs for the community; and an estimated timeline for implementing different options.

This project develops the dynamic modeling of hydro plants and wind generation in Sitka, Alaska. A dynamic penetration of renewables was evaluated under various conditions. The impact of altering hydro generation control to synchronous condenser control was evaluated.While the existing hydro generations are sufficient to address voltage instability, a detailed study of the active-reactive capability limits of hydro generation operation should be conducted to uptake at various wind penetration levels.