The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has issued a request for proposal (RFP) and is accepting applications for the Competitiveness Improvement Project. The Competitiveness Improvement Project is supported by DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office in alignment with the office’s goals to make wind energy cost competitive with other distributed energy resources, improve interoperability with other distributed energy resources, and increase the number of wind turbine designs certified to national testing standards. Through the Competitiveness Improvement Project, NREL intends to award cost-shared subcontracts and technical support to:
- Develop wind turbine system designs optimized for maximum energy production and grid support in distributed applications
- Develop advanced manufacturing processes to reduce hardware costs
- Conduct turbine and component testing to national standards to verify system performance and safety.