Cost of Wind Energy Review:2024 Edition Tyler Stehly, Patrick Duffy, andDaniel Mulas HernandoNational Renewable Energy LaboratoryNovember 2024 New Report Naming Convention •This year’s report uses a new naming convention—"2024 Edition"—to align with the WindEnergy Technologies Office's naming convention for the wind energy market reports •The data and results in this analysis are derived from the prior year’s 2023 commissionedplants, representative industry data, and state-of-the-art modeling capabilities used to inform Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Patrick Gilman (U.S. Department of Energy Office of EnergyEfficiency and Renewable Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office [WETO]) for supporting thisresearch. Thanks also to Gage Reber (contractor to WETO) of Boston Government Services andDaniel Beals (contractor to WETO) of Lindahl Reed Inc. for reviewing prior versions of thispresentation. Thank you to Ryan Wiser and Dev Millstein (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)and Lindsay Sheridan (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) for their analysis of wind project Executive Summary Executive Summary •The 13thannualCost of Wind Energy Reviewuses representative utility-scale and distributed wind energy projects to estimatethe levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for land-based and offshore wind power plants in the United States. −Data and results are derived from 2023 commissioned plants, representative industry data, and state-of-the-artmodeling capabilities. The goals of this analysis are to provide insight into current component-level costs and give a basis for understandingthe impacts of market variability on wind energy LCOE in the United States. Recent U.S. offshore wind industry strike prices exceed the LCOE estimates in this publication. Slide 43, titled“2023 Offshore Wind Reference Plant LCOE Estimates,” outlines several factors contributing to these disparities. •The primary elements of this 2023 analysis include: −Estimated LCOE for (1) a representativeland-based windenergy project installed in a moderate wind resource in theUnited States, (2) a representativefixed-bottom offshore windenergy project installed in the U.S. North Atlantic, and(3) a representativefloating offshore windenergy project installed off the U.S. Pacific coast−Updated LCOE estimates for representative residential-scale, commercial-scale, and large-scaledistributed windprojects installed in a moderate wind resource in the United States Levelized Cost Breakdown forReference Land-Based Wind Plant Levelized Cost Breakdown for ReferenceFixed-Bottom Offshore Wind Plant Levelized Cost Breakdown forReference Floating Offshore Wind Plant Levelized Cost Breakdown forReference Distributed Wind Projects Key Conclusions •The reference project LCOE forland-based installations is $42/MWh, with a range of land-based estimates from the single-variable sensitivity analysis covering $30–$61/MWh (see •Thefixed-bottom offshore wind estimate is $117/MWh, and thefloating substructure the large variation in CapEx ($3,000–$9,187/kW) and project design life. •Theresidential and commercial reference distributed windsystem LCOE are estimated at $240/MWh and $174/MWh, respectively. Single-variable sensitivity analysis for therepresentative systems is presented in the2019 Cost of Wind Energy Review(Stehly, Beiter,and Duffy 2020). Analysts included the LCOE estimate for alarge distributedwind energyproject in this year’s analysis, estimated at$80/MWh. Contents 1Background 4 1. Background Background •TheCost of Wind Energy Review: 2024 Editionestimates the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for land-based,offshore, and distributed wind energy projects in the United States.−LCOE is a metric used to assess the cost of electricity generation and the total power-plant-levelimpact from technology design changes. It can be used to compare costs of all types of generation. −The specific LCOE method applied in this analysis is described inA Manual for the EconomicEvaluation of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Technologies(Short, Packey, and Holt 1995): •LCOE = levelized cost of energy (dollars per megawatt-hour[$/MWh]) 𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿=𝐿𝐿𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿𝑥𝑥 ∗ 𝐹𝐹𝐿𝐿𝐹𝐹+𝐿𝐿𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿𝑥𝑥𝐴𝐴𝐿𝐿𝑃𝑃𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛1,000 •FCR = fixed charge rate (%)•CapEx = capital expenditures (dollars per kilowatt [$/kW])•AEPnet= net average annual energy production (megawatt-hoursper megawatt per year [MWh/MW/yr])•OpEx = operational expenditures ($/kW/yr) Background •This review also provides an update to the2022 Cost of Wind Energy Review(Stehly, Duffy, and Mulas Hernando2023) and examines wind turbine costs, financing, and market conditions. The analysis includes: −Estimated LCOE for a representativeland-basedwind energy projectinstalled in a moderate wind resource(i.e., International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC] wind class IIb [IEC 2020]) in the United States−Estimated LCOE for representativeoffshore (fixed-bottom and floating)