Wind Powering America's Regional Stakeholder Meetings and Priority
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NOTICE This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, subcontractors, or affiliated partners makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States government or any agency thereof. Available electronically at http://www.osti.gov/bridge Available for a processing fee to U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors, in paper, from: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information P.O. Box 62 Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0062 phone: 865.576.8401 fax: 865.576.5728 email: mailto:[email protected] Available for sale to the public, in paper, from: U.S. Department of Commerce National Technical Information Service 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161 phone: 800.553.6847 fax: 703.605.6900 email: [email protected] online ordering: http://www.ntis.gov/ordering.htm Printed on paper containing at least 50% wastepaper, including 20% postconsumer waste Contact Ian Baring-Gould Wind Powering America Technical Director National Renewable Energy Laboratory 15013 Denver West Parkway, MS3811 Golden, CO 80401 Phone: 303-888-8888 E-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgements The Wind Powering America team would like to thank the following regional meeting attendees who contributed reports at the meetings: Grace Anderson, Bill Auberle, Sara Baldwin, Jen Banks, Thurman Brendlinger, Bonnie Christiansen, Corrie Christol, Steven Clarke, Lisa Daniels, Alex DePillis, Karan English, Alex Fuller-Young, Andrew Gohn, Rich Hamilton, John Hansen, Jeneane Harter, Jeff Herholdt, Sue Jones, Tom Kaiserski, Rita Kilpatrick, David Loomis, Josh Mathis, Dan McGuire, Kylah McNabb, Jonathan Miles, Erika Myers, Amanda Ormond, Alice Orrell, Victoria Pebbles, Tom Potter, Francis Pullaro, John Sarver, Vijay Satyal, Mark Sinclair, Tim Stearns, Katie Stokes, Ted Vogel, and Steve Wegman. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC36- 08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. iii Abbreviations and Acronyms ASPA American Samoa Power Authority CNMI Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency GW gigawatt kW kilowatt kWh kilowatt-hour MW megawatt NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory RPS Renewable Portfolio Standard U.S. DOE U.S. Department of Energy USVI U.S. Virgin Islands WAPA Water and Power Authority (U.S. Virgin Islands) WPA Wind Powering America WWG Wind Working Group iv Executive Summary The principal technology acceptance goals of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Wind Program are 30 states achieving at least 100 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity by 2010 and 15 states achieving at least 1 gigawatt (GW) of installed capacity by 2018. For fiscal year (FY) 2011, the annual target was 30 states with at least 100 MW and six states with 1 GW of installed capacity. At the end of FY 2011, 29 states achieved 100 MW of installed capacity: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Fourteen states had more than 1 GW of installed wind capacity: California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming (Figure 1). During FY 2012, the Granite Reliable Power Windpark pushed New Hampshire over the 100-MW threshold, making it the 30th state to reach 100 MW of installed capacity and fulfilling that programmatic goal. DOE's Wind Powering America (WPA) initiative provided extensive support in almost all of these states since its inception in 1999. Beginning in 2007, WPA funded 3-year contracts with the self-defined high-priority states of Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Other medium- and lower-priority states had reserved smaller grant-based funding to support stakeholder engagement activities, primarily through state energy offices. (See Figure 2 for medium- and lower-priority state designations.) As a final deliverable of the 3-year priority state contracts, representatives of these states were asked to produce a summary report describing the current market for wind deployment, which activities were effective in expanding the wind development dialog, and which barriers continue to hamper development. Beginning in 2010, DOE conducted an assessment of WPA activities to determine whether the methods the department had used to help grow the wind industry to provide 2% of the nation’s electrical energy should be the same methods used to achieve 20% of the nation’s energy from wind (as described in the report 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply). After the assessment, it was determined that the initiative’s state-based activities should be phased out as part of a shift to regional-based approaches. To assist with this transition, WPA hosted a series of 1-day regional meetings at six strategic locations around the country and a single teleconference for island states, U.S. territories, and remote communities. Locations were chosen based on regional diversity and the unique characteristics of a region but were not meant to define regions that the program may use in the future. The WPA team invited state representatives, Wind Working Group members, and other interested stakeholders from every region to attend and share experiences. These events will assist WPA staff and participants to identify persistent deployment barriers, prioritize these barriers, and highlight successful approaches to address the identified barriers. This report summarizes the results of the inaugural regional meetings and the state reports with a focus on ongoing wind deployment barriers in each region. As part of the discussion process, attendees voted on the critical barriers in their regions and discussed the top issues in each region during breakout sessions. The following figure provides a breakdown of these barriers by the percentage of votes received. v Section 2 explores these barriers in detail. Regional responses are provided in the individual regional reports in Section 3. Attendees also provided recommendations for the regional initiative (see Section 4). Some of the key recommendations include: • The acceptability of large-scale wind deployment and under what conditions is largely determined at the state level. Although regional groups can be helpful to address cross-border issues, decisions that impact wind deployment often occur at the state level. Funding should be allocated with this in mind. • In some cases, states have different and potentially competing drivers for wind deployment. A regional approach must be cognizant of this and must not operate at such a high level that the real issues are not addressed. • Longer-term commitments to regional organizations, with direct support to state entities, will be required to make a program of this nature successful. • Collaboration combined with expanding on existing structures is key to successful regional organizations. vi Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 2 Regional Stakeholder Meetings .......................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Meeting Participants ......................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Wind Development Barriers Identified by Participants ..................................................................... 5 2.2.1 Lack of State Wind Power Markets ..................................................................................... 6 2.2.1.1 Aspects ........................................................................................................................... 6 2.2.1.2 Potential Solutions .......................................................................................................... 7 2.2.1.3 Potential Regional Solutions ........................................................................................... 8 2.2.2 Permitting and Zoning Issues ............................................................................................. 9 2.2.2.1 Aspects ........................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.2.2 Potential Solutions ........................................................................................................ 10 2.2.2.3 Potential Regional Solutions ........................................................................................