NREL analysis: simulations show nonlinear relationship between renewable contribution and costs

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Simulations Show Nonlinear Relationship Between Renewable Contribution and Costs—and that U.S. Can Get To 80+% Renewables at Same Cost as Keeping System at Today’s 20%

With declining costs for renewable energy technologies, interest has turned to how that might translate into the total system costs of integrating more renewable energy on the U.S. grid. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers Wesley Cole, Nathaniel Gates, and Trieu Mai examined how changing the contribution of renewable energy from the optimal solution impacts the cost of building and operating the electricity system, as well as trade-offs between emissions savings and system costs for higher and lower levels of renewable generation. The results, outlined in an ... More: Official Press Release NREL

Keywords:

NREL, renewable energy, costs, energy system, USA, decline, growth, integrating, grid, transmission grid, wind, solar