The
goal of NRECA Research’s project, Rural Area Distributed Wind Integration Network
Development (RADWIND), is to understand, address, and reduce the technical
risks and market barriers to distributed wind adoption by rural utilities. This
will be done through the identification of solutions, development of sharable
resources, and demonstration of technology by and with rural communities. Many
solutions will involve pairing distributed wind with other Distributed Energy
Resource (DER) technologies, such as solar energy or battery storage.
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Distributed wind is the use of wind technologies as a distributed generation resource. Distributed wind projects can use a wide range of turbine sizes from the small kilowatt scale up to multi-megawatt units. The U.S. Department of Energy distinguishes Distributed Wind systems from other wind deployments based on the following criteria:
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Proximity to End-Use: Wind turbines that are installed at or near the point of end-use for the purposes of meeting onsite energy demand or supporting the operation of the existing distribution grid.
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Point of Interconnection: Wind turbines that are connected on the customer side of the meter (also known as behind-the-meter), directly to the distribution grid, or are off-grid in a remote location.
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RADWIND will focus on five key areas:
- Convene co-ops and stakeholders to understand needs and establish clear metrics to determine the success of the project's efforts.
- Compile associated issues to address and to inform the development of solutions.
- Discuss issues and potential solutions with a larger stakeholder base to establish common practices.
- Address issues, through groups focused by topics, to create common materials, case studies, and common practices for both technical and financial aspects of any project.
- Present clear use cases, value cases, business cases, solutions, and shareable information resources to inform electric cooperatives as well as stakeholders seeking to provide services or products to them around Distributed Wind.
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