2020 Annual Technology Baseline Electricity Data Now Available

• Power analysts, modelers, and system organizers, the delay mores than: the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has actually released the 2020 update to its Annual Technology Baseline (ATB), an essential source of trusted electricity-generation technology expense and also performance information that can sustain and also educate electrical industry analysis in the United States.

Currently in its sixth year, the ATB papers technology-specific details on a broad spectrum of electricity-generation technologies-- wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, biopower, coal, gas, nuclear, as well as battery storage-- with initial forecasts for the sustainable technologies based on technology advancements.

The ATB incorporates present and projected information from different sources into a highly accessible and also commonly referenced source for energy experts. The 2020 ATB is readily available at atb.nrel.gov and will be featured in a webinar on July 27.

" With each upgrade to the ATB, we aim to allow and also motivate analytic combination across sectors and also technologies by establishing an unified, consistent perspective on common presumptions and also situations," claimed Laura Vimmerstedt, NREL energy expert. "This year's launch enhances the basis of those circumstances in technology development and also features interactive, downloadable charts that allow the individuals to dive deeper right into the data."

The ATB provides scenarios with three different levels of technology advancement in future renewable electricity-generation technology price and efficiency via 2050 to support evaluation of future possibilities in the U.S. electric field. It also includes upgraded utility-scale battery storage presumptions based on a 2020 NREL reportPDF.

The electricity-sector ATB, which is sustained by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and also Renewable Energy, incorporates NREL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory evaluation, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as well as details from a variety of released reports right into 4 primary products for power analysts.

1. The ATB Excel spread sheet records outlined current and projected expense and also performance data for electricity generation technologies.
2. The ATB Summary CSV files capture cost as well as generation capacity in a database-friendly format.
3. Tableau workbook files supply access to initial visualizations.
4. The site supplies in-depth documentation of these measurable items, including:

• Descriptions of historic patterns, current estimates, and future projections of 3 primary cost and also performance variables: capital investment, capacity factor, as well as procedures as well as upkeep expense.
• Documents of the methodology and also presumptions utilized to establish the estimates of future expense and efficiency under traditional-, moderate-, as well as progressed technology innovation situations.
• Conversation of the calculation of levelized price of power to illustrate the combined result of the primary expense as well as efficiency aspects, utilizing two different sets of funding assumptions.

The 2020 ATB includes upgraded funding assumptions, based upon a forthcoming NREL record on renewable resource job funding terms. The different cases show the difference between technological and also financial results on the key metrics.

In addition to updated technology-specific data, this year's ATB site upgrade likewise uses a better customer experience with expanded features, consisting of interactive, downloadable charts, streamlined site navigating, and optional user enrollment to receive occasional updates.

This work is part of a wider structure introduced by NREL in 2015 to boost the robustness and comparability of electric market evaluation by the research laboratory, academia, and other entities in the power analysis community. The ATB gives inputs for NREL's annual Standard Scenarios modeling of the electric industry, which explores a diverse collection of prospective paths for U.S. electrical sector evolution over time, based on various presumptions regarding gas rates, plans, as well as various other variables. The ATB information is also utilized widely in other positive evaluations, consisting of NREL's Electrification Futures Study, along with by utility coordinators as well as grid drivers in identifying future systems.

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