PNNL

Abstract

Increased distributed wind energy adoption in the United States can contribute to the diverse portfolio of energy technologies needed to achieve ambitious decarbonization goals. However, with limited deployment to date, the current distributed wind market must be well understood to support research and development efforts and meet stakeholder needs to drive adoption. To understand the existing landscape of distributed wind installations, this work presents a methodology to separate distributed wind installations into three categories: (1) behind the meter, (2) intended for explicit local load, and (3) physically distributed. This methodology is applied to two datasets of wind installations in the United States to categorize the distributed wind market. Physically distributed installations account for the highest amount of capacity but the lowest number of installations out of the three categories. The inverse is true for behind-the-meter installations, and distributed installations intended for explicit local load rank in the middle for both installed capacity and number of installations. Current distributed wind deployment is geographically widespread, but the extent to which a single category is developed within each state varies. State policies, wind resources, and overall technology trends may contribute to these deployment patterns, providing insights to shape research and development and meet stakeholder needs.