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NREL Requests Proposals From US Producers of Small & Medium Wind Turbine Know-how


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Competitiveness Enchancment Mission 2024 Funding Focuses on Bringing Know-how to Market

The U.S. Division of Vitality’s (DOE’s) Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory (NREL) has issued a request for proposals (RFP) beneath the Competitiveness Enchancment Mission (CIP) to assist commercialization and market enlargement of small and medium wind turbine expertise.

New in 2024 is a give attention to commercialization plans and enterprise fashions that assist price financial savings and income era for rural small companies and farmers in assist of the U.S. Division of Agriculture and DOE’s new Rural and Agricultural Earnings & Financial savings from Renewable Vitality (RAISE) Initiative. Proposals can be accepted via 2 p.m. MT on March 27, 2024.

In February 2024, NREL issued the 2024 Competitiveness Enchancment Mission funding solicitation, which is designed to assist wind vitality expertise producers like Bergey Windpower. Mission funding helped Bergey develop its Excel 15 wind turbine, proven right here, which was lately put in as a part of a brand new distributed wind vitality analysis functionality at NREL’s Flatirons Campus. Picture by Josh Bauer and Brian Bechtold, NREL.

Managed by NREL on behalf of DOE’s Wind Vitality Applied sciences Workplace, CIP awards cost-shared subcontracts and nationwide laboratory technical assist to U.S. part suppliers and producers of small- and medium-sized wind generators.

Advancing small and medium wind vitality techniques to commercialization is technically difficult and useful resource intensive for small companies, which regularly lack the capability to develop, certify, and commercialize their applied sciences.

Take Windward Engineering, for instance. This small firm primarily based in Spanish Fork, Utah, has obtained two CIP awards. The primary award helped Windward Engineering develop the design of its 60-kilowatt Zephyr 21/60 wind turbine. In 2022, a CIP award made it doable for the corporate to carry out prototype testing of the Zephyr turbine in preparation for certification and entry into the distributed wind market.

“Prototype testing is expensive and difficult for small companies,” mentioned Dean Davis, president of Windward Engineering. “The assist of the CIP program is essential to completely check the Zephyr 21/60’s new full-span pitch system for operate, efficiency, and cargo discount as we transfer towards manufacturing.”

Centered on Present Market Wants

The CIP 2024 RFP displays the present wants of the U.S. distributed wind vitality market by prioritizing subjects that:

  • Present distributed vitality customers with wind vitality expertise choices which can be examined and authorized for efficiency and high quality
  • Help distributed wind vitality expertise commercialization with a give attention to enterprise fashions that profit rural small companies and farmers
  • Handle the necessity for inverters constructed particularly for distributed wind generators and which have achieved itemizing to nationwide security requirements
  • Develop superior manufacturing processes to scale back {hardware} prices and meet rising demand.

“CIP funding in 2024 responds to what the distributed wind market wants — distributed wind vitality parts and generators which can be examined, licensed, and commercialized,” mentioned Brent Summerville, NREL distributed wind vitality researcher and CIP program lead. “We’re serving to firms get throughout the end line to deployment, which helps nationwide clear vitality objectives and advantages rural communities.”

CIP has additionally added a brand new subject space for 2024 — Inverter Itemizing. Beforehand embedded within the Small Wind Certification subject space, inverters will now have a standalone subject space that gives a clearer path to deal with the pressing want for inverters constructed particularly for distributed wind generators and which have achieved itemizing to U.S. inverter requirements and necessities.

In response to suggestions supplied by business members throughout workshops held in 2023, NREL provided potential CIP candidates the chance to submit idea papers detailing their concepts previous to the RFP launch.

“Idea papers enabled NREL to supply immediate suggestions to candidates on their concepts,” Summerville mentioned. “This step not solely provides NREL a approach to supply suggestions to potential candidates, but additionally provides us perception into what business is considering.”

Subject Areas

The 2024 CIP RFP invitations proposals that target six subject areas. They’re:

  • Prototype Set up and Testing, for tasks validating prototype wind generators to find out their business readiness
  • Small Turbine Certification and/or Itemizing, for tasks serving to small (150 kilowatts or much less) wind generators obtain certification and turbine meeting or parts obtain itemizing to relevant electrical security requirements
  • Sort Certification and Itemizing, for tasks serving to generators as much as 1 megawatt search kind certification and turbine meeting or parts obtain itemizing to relevant electrical security requirements
  • (New) Inverter Itemizing, for tasks addressing the necessity for inverters constructed particularly for wind generators as much as 1 megawatt and which have achieved itemizing to nationwide security requirements
  • Manufacturing Course of Innovation, for tasks supporting designing, constructing, and validating improved manufacturing processes for wind turbine manufacturing, resulting in diminished vitality prices
  • Product Commercialization and Market Growth, for tasks addressing price limitations to commercialization and large-scale improvement

The 2024 RFP contains cost-share necessities, and proposals should present proof of technical readiness, incorporation in the USA, sturdy crew abilities and capabilities, and monetary info. Work funded beneath this effort is predicted to happen in the USA and/or U.S. territories except in any other case justified.

Along with typical benefit standards that rating CIP proposals on technical strategy, readiness, market influence, and venture crew, candidates will full a variety, fairness, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) evaluation. This can assist NREL consider candidates’ dedication to DEIA ideas, together with their understanding, observe report, and concrete plans for advancing DEIA inside their group.

Mission Impression

Since CIP started in 2012, NREL has awarded 64 subcontracts to 26 firms, totaling $15.4 million of DOE funding and leveraging $7.9 million in further private-sector funding.

“Over 12 years, CIP has been instrumental in advancing wind vitality as a low-cost distributed era expertise choice, supporting new product innovation, and guaranteeing the efficiency and high quality of those applied sciences for distributed wind vitality customers,” Summerville mentioned. “What the market wants proper now are licensed generators prepared for deployment, and that’s what the CIP 2024 funding spherical is designed to do.”


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