End of December 2022, NREL has selected manufacturers of small- and mid-wind turbine technology for funding in 2022 until 2023. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) is designed to reduce the cost of distributed wind energy and accelerate deployment of small- and medium-sized wind turbines across the United States. CIP commenced in 2012 and is therefore now supporting wind technology for more than a decade.
NREL has announced plans to award $2.9 million to 11 manufacturers of small- and medium-scale wind turbine technology through CIP. These awards help manufacturers of wind turbines less than 1 megawatt in capacity, as well as other distributed wind technology such as power electronics, to:
- Optimize their designs to reduce costs, increase energy production, and enhance grid reliability, resilience, and compatibility with solar and storage systems
- Develop advanced manufacturing processes to increase production and reduce costs
- Support distributed wind energy adoption through turbine and component testing for certification to national performance and safety standards
- Accelerate pathways for commercialization.
More information is available via the news post at NREL.