Third-party financing, leasing options fueling distributed wind growth, market report finds

The fifth annual Distributed Wind Market Report from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) noted that third-party financing and leasing options have enabled more individuals and businesses to generate their own wind power.

“New financing options helped rooftop solar become widespread,” Alice Orrell, an energy analyst at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the report’s lead author, said. “Now they could also help make distributed wind more commonplace and expand its role in the national energy mix.”

The report highlights two examples of this new trend. In New York, United Wind offers leases to farmers and others to place wind turbines on their property with little to no upfront costs. Ohio’s One Energy Enterprises LLC offers power purchase agreements that allow industrial companies to install large turbines at their facilities. Both secured substantial financing in 2016.

PNNL also found that the cost of energy produced by distributed wind projects installed in 2016 ranged from 5 to 24 cents per kilowatt-hour. This compares to 9.3 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour for average residential power rates in the United States

Additionally, 45.4 megawatts (MW) of distributed wind power were installed in 25 U.S. states and the U.S. territory of Guam in 2016, bringing the nation’s total to 992 MW between 2003 and 2016. Rhode Island installed the most of any state in 2016, 15 megawatts.

The United States also added 2.4 MW of small wind power in 2016, bringing the total to 46 MW installed between 2003 and 2016. New York led the nation by installing 627 kilowatts, a quarter of all 2016 additions.