Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Governors Association has recently announced an intention to coordinate
energy policy to facilitate development of western renewable energy zones.
he aim is to provide leadership in clean energy development in the absence
of a cohesive federal policy.
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hese types of initiatives serve both a commer-
cial and a political purpose. Commercially, they serve as a beacon to attract
new wind power projects. Politically, they tend to inspire similar eforts,
engendering a level of political competition that can create conditions for
universal change. On the other hand, the development of state initiatives
also takes the pressure of of federal policymakers. If the state is inancing
wind power development, the federal government can save on iscal expen-
diture by ceding such responsibility to the states. herefore, both state and
federal leadership is essential for expediting the pace of difusion.
he technological development of wind systems has been directly inlu-
enced by inancial support for R&D both at the federal and state level. As
stated earlier in this chapter, federal support for wind power technology
development was instrumental in enabling the wind power boom in the early
1980s. Since then, the Department of Energy has been inluential in help-
ing supplement private wind power research and its numerous laboratories
around the country have directly contributed to technological innovation.
Recently, the US Department of Energy has entered into a partnership
with six leading wind turbine manufacturers to facilitating exchange of
information related to R&D to enhance system reliability and eiciency,
develop efective siting strategies, encourage advances in manufacturing
and design, and improve process automation and fabrication techniques.
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All of this is in support of the initiative intended to achieve a 20% contri-
bution from wind power by 2030. One concrete contribution that the US
Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory will make
to this collaborative efort will come from its state of the art wind turbine
blade test facility in Ingleside, Texas. he department will also be tasked
with disbursing US$2 billion earmarked under ARRA that will go largely to
supporting research in advanced battery development.
It merits pointing out that political inluence on technological innovation
in wind systems is far greater than just the funding that is disbursed under
federal and state programs. For example, if PURPA did not mandate access
for wind power developers to the electricity grid and if the PTC did not pro-
vide the added inancial incentive to encourage wind power development, it
is very possible that suicient market demand would not have existed to sup-
port the R&D that was done by private wind power irms. Similarly, the RPS
that are currently in place in many states and the standards, codes, and regu-
lations administered by local utility commissions also play an instrumental
role in generating suicient market demand to encourage R&D.
