Even better, there’s plenty of room for wind’s costs to continue their sharp decline, according to a new report from Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Wind’s previous cost declines were largely driven by technological advances that allow modern turbines to reach stronger, steadier winds. That lets them generate more electricity at a lower cost. Improvements in domestic manufacturing and economies of scale also made it cheaper to build new wind turbines. While there are still gains to be made in these areas, operations expenditures (OpEx) present a huge opportunity for new gains and were the focus of NREL and LBNL’s new study.