NREL Calls for Proposals From US Wind Turbine Manufacturers | News

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NREL Calls for Proposals From US Wind Turbine Manufacturers | News

2025 Competitiveness Improvement Project Aims To Expand Access to Distributed Wind
Energy Technology

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Wind turbine stands in the middle of a field next to solar panels and hydro power plant

In January 2025, NREL issued the 2025 Competitiveness Improvement Project funding
solicitation, which is designed to support wind energy technology manufacturers like
EWT Americas. Project funding is helping EWT commercialize its 1-megawatt turbine,
shown here in a wastewater treatment facility in the U.K., across agricultural, commercial,
and industrial segments, including dairy processors and biogas and water treatment
facilities. Photo from EWT Americas

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
has issued a request for proposals (RFP) under the Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) to support the development of small- and medium-sized wind turbine technology.

The 2025 RFP includes significant program changes aimed at streamlining the process
of innovative design development, optimization, testing, and certification to expand
access to distributed wind turbine technology.

Managed by NREL on behalf of DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, CIP awards cost-shared
subcontracts and national laboratory technical support to U.S. component suppliers
and manufacturers of small- and medium-sized wind turbines.

Advancing these wind energy systems to commercialization is technically challenging
and resource-intensive for small businesses, which often lack the capacity to develop,
certify, and commercialize their technologies on their own.

“Certification and testing costs are often prohibitive for manufacturers our size,”
said Chris Connor, principal engineer of NPS Solutions, which received CIP awards
in 2022 and 2024 to pursue certification of its 100-kilowatt wind turbine and inverter.
“The technical and financial support available through DOE’s Competitiveness Improvement
Project is vital for smaller distributed wind manufacturers, like us, to ensure the
safety, quality, and performance of our products.”

Learn more on the CIP webpage or the RFP webpage on sam.org.

RFP submissions are due by 2 p.m. MT on March 28, 2025.

Responsive to Market Needs, Industry Feedback, and Rising Costs

The CIP 2025 RFP considers the current needs of the U.S. distributed wind energy market
by prioritizing award topics that:

  • Support distributed wind energy technology development and innovation to improve reliability,
    increase performance, and drive down installed costs
  • Address the need for inverters built specifically for distributed wind turbines that
    have achieved listing to national safety and interconnection standards and that are
    capable of supporting grid operations
  • Develop advanced manufacturing processes to reduce hardware costs and meet growing
    demand
  • Ensure that distributed energy consumers have wind energy technology options that
    are certified for performance and quality
  • Commercialize certified distributed wind technology.

“CIP has helped small businesses across the United States develop new and innovative
distributed wind energy technology, increasing public access to a wide range of small-
and medium-scale wind turbine designs tested and certified to national performance
and safety standards,” said Brent Summerville, NREL CIP lead. “In addition, CIP projects
have helped make distributed wind energy technology more cost-competitive and improved
its interoperability with other distributed energy resources.”

In response to industry input, NREL will incorporate optional concept papers into
the 2025 RFP, providing applicants the opportunity to present their project ideas
and receive feedback from NREL CIP staff prior to submitting full proposals.

Further, to help optimize the technology development process, a 2025 applicant will
be able to propose follow-on efforts in one phased multi-topic-area proposal that
can include up to three topic areas. For example, an applicant may propose a Phase
1 effort to manufacture a prototype under the Prototype Manufacture topic area, followed
by a second phase falling within the Prototype Installation and Testing topic area,
and then a Phase 3 effort within the Small Turbine Certification and/or Listing topic
area.

Successful awardees will complete their Phase 1 activities followed by a go/no-go
stage during which the decision to advance to the next phase will be evaluated based
on Phase 1 performance. If a “go” decision is made, Phase 2 efforts will be renegotiated. 

Finally, maximum award amounts have been increased for five of the ten 2025 topic
areas to offset the rising costs of turbine manufacturing, testing, and inverter listing
and to accommodate high costs associated with medium-scale wind turbine development.

NREL will host a brief webinar on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, to provide an overview of
CIP changes in 2025. Register here for the webinar.

Proposals Must Align With Topic Areas

The 2025 CIP RFP invites proposals that focus on the following 10 topic areas:

  1. Prototype Manufacture for projects supporting the manufacturing of a full-scale prototype wind turbine
    system that is ready for prototype testing
  2. Prototype Design Development for projects moving original concepts from the preliminary design phase to a final
    prototype wind turbine design ready for manufacturing and testing
  3. Prototype Installation and Testing for projects validating prototype wind turbines to determine their commercial readiness
  4. Component Innovation for projects supporting innovation in existing components—such as controllers, inverters,
    alternators, rotor blades, or towers—to lower costs
  5. System Optimization for projects supporting improvements in existing wind turbine designs to optimize
    the full system or a subsystem of components, leading to a reduced levelized cost
    of energy
  6. Small Turbine Certification and/or Listing for projects helping small (150 kilowatts or less) wind turbines achieve certification
    and turbine assembly or components achieve listing to applicable electrical safety
    standards
  7. Type Certification and Listing for projects helping turbines up to 1 megawatt seek type certification and turbine
    assembly or components achieve listing to applicable electrical safety standards
  8. Inverter Listing for projects addressing the need for inverters that are built specifically for wind
    turbines up to 1 megawatt and to achieve listing to national electrical safety standards
  9. Manufacturing Process Innovation for projects supporting designing, implementing, and validating improved manufacturing
    processes for wind turbine production to reduce costs and meet growing demand
  10. Technology Commercialization for projects addressing risks to commercialization of distributed wind technology
    and the development of tools, business models, and partnerships for large-scale development.

The 2025 CIP RFP includes cost-share requirements, and proposals must provide evidence
of technical readiness, incorporation in the United States, strong team skills and
capabilities, and project budget justification. Work funded under this effort is expected
to take place in the United States and/or U.S. territories unless otherwise justified.

“CIP has been instrumental in advancing wind energy as a low-cost distributed generation
technology option,” Summerville said. “Improvements in CIP 2025 are aimed at making
the program even more impactful and supportive for the growing distributed wind energy
industry.”

To view the CIP RFP and read more information about CIP, including examples of past
awards and information presented in a December 2024 webinar, visit the CIP project website. Learn more about NREL’s distributed wind energy research, and subscribe to NREL’s wind energy newsletter for more news like this.

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