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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene
Wind power systems for zero net energy housing in the United States
Melissa R. Elkinton, Jon G. McGowan*, James F. Manwell
Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 14 December 2007
Accepted 1 October 2008
Available online 21 November 2008
This work investigates the feasibility of renewable energy housing development in the U.S. using wind
power and solar thermal systems to attain zero net energy consumption. The over all objective was to
determine how the wind power and solar thermal system designs and economics differ with various
climates, wind and solar resources, energy prices, and state incentives, such as net-metering. Five U.S.
cities, one in each of the five climate zones, were selected for this study based on their potential for wind
power. A zero net energy housing design tool was developed in order to analyze and compare various
system designs. The energy performance and economics of the designs were compared for various sizes
of housing development, for seven turbine models, and selected heating systems. The results suggest
that while there are some economical options for wind powered zero net energy housing developments,
they are generally more expensive (except in the warmest climate zone) than housing with natural gas
heating. In all of the cases, the economies of scale for large-scale wind turbines gave more of an economic
advantage than net-metering programs gave small- and medium-scale wind turbines.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Wind energy
Zero net energy housing
Wind and solar systems
1. Introduction/objectives
This work considers the feasibility of wind power and solar
thermal systems for zero net energy housing developments in the
U.S. Following recent U.S. Department of Energy nomenclature [1],
a zero net energy residence (connected to the grid) combines stateof-the-art, energy-efficient construction and appliances with
commercially available renewable energy systems. This combination can result in net zero energy consumption from the utility
provider since they are designed and constructed to produce as
much energy as they consume annually.
The objective of this work is to investigate the feasibility, via
representative case studies, of renewable energy housing developments with wind power and solar thermal systems in order to
attain zero net energy consumption. Five U.S. cities, one in each of
the five climate zones, have been chosen based on their potential
for wind power. The climates are defined according to the 2003
Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, where the
heating-degree-days (HDD) here are in C [2]:
Zone 1 less than 1111 CDD and greater than 3889 HDD
Zone 2 less than 1111 CDD and between 3056 and 3889 HDD
Zone 3 less than 1111 CDD and between 2222 and 3055 HDD
Zone 4 less than 1111 CDD and less than 2222 HDD
Zone 5 1111 CDD or more and less than 2222 HDD
1271
Table 3
Average space heating energy use per house for each climate zone [5].
Climate zone
kWh/m2
Climate zone
1
2
3
4
5
48.4
55.9
73.2
77.5
97.9
1
2
3
4
5
19.2
18.5
14.2
8.1
5.5
106.5
113.0
94.7
46.3
32.3
Table 2
RECS appliance energy use data for each climate zone [5].
Climate zone
Refrigerators (kWh)
Other appliances
and lighting (kWh)
Total (kWh)
1
2
3
4
5
1347
1334
1358
1385
1827
5622
5362
5270
5129
5880
6969
6696
6628
6514
7707
Table 4
Average space cooling energy use per house for each climate zone [5].
Climate zone
1
2
3
4
5
1069
1208
1660
2322
4058
6.1
7.0
9.6
13.3
23.3
1272
Table 5
Average DHW energy use per house for each climate zone [5].
Climate zone
1
2
3
4
5
4601
5246
4689
4425
3986
1846
2110
1876
1700
1407
cscaled cmeasured
UNCDC
Umeasured
(1)
1
lnU
U2
lnzz12
(2)
1273
Table 6
Five cities representing five climate zones selected for this research.
City, State
Climate zone
Number of years
Great Falls, MT
Goodland, KS
Amarillo, TX
Oklahoma City, OK
Kahului, HI
1
2
3
4
5
4264
3341
2403
2035
0
181
497
747
1059
2187
5.6
5.6
6.0
5.5
5.7
12
9
9
13
10a
64
57
64
57
33
Height data were not available for this site; this is an assumption based on NCDC correspondence.
1274
Table 7
Details of the short-term wind data obtained for the five research cities.
Table 9
Annual and monthly base electricity use for each climate zone.
City, State
Climate zone
1
2
3
4
5
3972
3783
3783
3783
4350
331
315
315
315
363
Great Falls, MT
Goodland, KS
Amarillo, TX
Oklahoma City,
OK
Kahului, HI
Latitude, longitude
Years of data,
time step
Measured
Source
heights (m)
47.5027N, 111.4323W
38.95917N, 100.85264W
35.17278N, 101.54442W
35.5356N, 98.0156W
1.7
1.3
3.1
1.5
10, 30, 40
50, 80, 110
50, 75, 100
20
[13]
[13]
[14]
[13]
20.91667N, 156.3558W
24.7
[15]
years, 10-min
years, 10-min
years, 10-min
years, 10-min
a1030
a3040
a1040
Goodland, KS
0.18
0.36
0.22
a5080
a80110
a50110
Amarillo, TX
0.20
0.22
0.21
a5074
a75100
a50100
0.16
0.10
0.05
Name
Bergey
Fuhrlander
Entegrity
Fuhrlander
Fuhrlander
Enertech
General electric
Excel-S
10
FL 30
30
EW15
50
FL 100
100
FL 250 250
E48
600
GE1.5 1500
5000
4400
4000
3100
2500
2100
1600
1275
Table 13
Heat pump inputs.
Great Falls, MT
62
3020
Goodland, KS
54
3020
11
Amarillo, TX
45
3360
11
3360
11
4190
16
City, State
Oklahoma City, OK 36
Kahului, HI
a
21
Percent by weight.
Table 12
Retail price of electricity for 2006 through November 2006.
State
Montana
Kansas
Texas
Oklahoma
Hawaii
8.3
8.3
12.8
8.6
23.5
Zone-City
Heat pump
Average COP
1-Great Falls
1-Great Falls
2-Goodland
2-Goodland
3-Amarillo
4-Oklahoma City
5-Kahului
GSHP
ASHP
GSHP
ASHP
ASHP
ASHP
4.0
3.0
4.0
3.0
3.0
3.0
$9,500
$3500
$9500
$3500
$3500
$3500
this would results in a cost of $250 per year for a 10 kW wind power
system and up to $12,000 per year for a 1.5 MW system.
The last cost consideration is the value of any subsidies or
incentives received from the production of wind energy. In this
research, the value of any benefit was normalized per kWh. The
federal production tax credit was not used, as it was not expected
that there would be an entity associated with the housing development with a large enough tax liability. Other state tax credits
were also not considered.
In many states renewable energy has added valued on the
market because it is considered green energy. In states with
Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs), which require utilities to
have a certain percent of their power to come from renewables, the
value of wind energy is traded in renewable energy certificates
(RECs). For the states in this research, only Montana and Texas have
RPSs. Montana requires 15% of generation to come from renewables
by 2015 and Texas requires 5880 MW by 2015. Montana, however,
only penalizes utilities that do not meet the RPS with a $10/MWh
fine [30]; with this penalty, the value of RECs in Montana will never
exceed $0.01/kWh. In this research, it was assumed that value of
RECs in Montana are $0.005/kWh. RECs in Texas, on the other hand,
trade at rates between $3 and $17 per MWh. In 2003, the value of
RECs ranged from $10 to $14/MWh. The penalty for noncompliance
is $50/MWh, so the value of RECs could feasibly rise to just under
$0.05/kWh [31]. In this research, the value of RECs for Texas was
taken to be $0.01/kWh.
4.2. Modeling design results
This section describes the zero net energy housing development
design options for the five climate zone cities based on the designs
that give the most promising economics, that is, they have lifecycle
costs that are comparable to the standard cases that are not zero net
energy.
4.2.1. Estimated load results
A significant consideration in the design was the housing
developments on-site load. Fig. 3 shows the resulting estimated
energy use for the 139 m2 (1500 ft2) houses. Note that in this plot,
the space heating loads are in terms of the electricity needed if the
homes were heated with electric resistance.
4.2.2. Sensitivity analysis results
The sensitivity analysis addresses the fact that many of the
inputs were subject to large ranges. For example, the installed costs
Table 14
Heating fuel comparison inputs for natural gas.
Zone-City
1-Great Falls
2-Goodland
3-Amarillo
4-Oklahoma City
5-Kahului
34 MJ/m3
34 MJ/m3
34 MJ/kWh
34 MJ/m3
$0.34/m3
$0.41/m3
$0.39/m3
$0.38/m3
$9.53/1000cf
$11.62/1000cf
$11.17/1000cf
$10.77/1000cf
80%
80%
80%
80%
1276
Energy (kWh)
18,000
16,000
3,972
3,780
14,000
600
678
3,780
12,000
4,301
4,713
932
3,780
Turbine
Number
of houses
Capacity
factor
Heating System
Net present
savings
(per house)
Great Falls
Goodland
Amarillo
Oklahoma City
GE
GE
GE
GE
350
375
125
350
0.37
0.41
0.40
0.37
ASHP
ASHP
Electric Resistance
Electric Resistance
$1300
$400
$4600
$900
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
10,000
4,220
1,304
8,000
4,356
6,000
3,945
9,239
8,915
4,000
2,279
6,855
3,879
2,000
3,148
0
Great Falls
Goodland
Heating
Water Heating
Cooling
Kahului
Base
Fig. 3. Estimated energy requirements for one house in each climate zone city.
City
7,500
5,000
2,500
0
-2,500
-5,000
-7,500
-10,000
-12,500
-15,000
0
0.5
1.5
2.5
Electricity cost
O&M costs
Fuel price
REC price
Energy prices
Wind Speed
3.5
Table 16
Best case options for Kahului zero net energy housing developments.
Turbine
Number
of houses
Capacity factor
Net present
savings (per house)
FL 30
EW15
FL 100
11
14
30
0.30
0.24
0.26
3.0
2.4
3.0
$11,000
$9300
$8700
Solar Fraction
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
Goodland
Amarillo
Oklahoma City
Kahului
Fig. 5. Solar fractions of hot water for each climate zone city.
300 houses, the design with the best economics only had 125
houses. This is because a greater percent of the load was offset in
cases where the housing load-to-turbine power ratio was
smaller. In determining a design, there was an optimum housing
development size that balanced the larger load of more houses
with the greater percent offset. In the Amarillo case, 75% of the
load was offset for 125 houses (with a load-to-power ratio of
0.38), whereas 63% was offset for 300 houses (load-to-power
ratio 0.91).
Oklahoma City had the combination of having a low cost of
electricity and the second lowest estimated mean wind speeds (as
compared to the other cities). The results of the analyses gave
results similar to those from Great Falls and Goodland, that is, the
standard natural gas heating system was slightly more economical
over a 20-year lifetime than the zero net energy system. Of the zero
net energy design options, the best choice was a system with
a 1.5 MW turbine, 350 houses, and electric resistance heating. The
net present cost of this system was $900 more per house than the
standard system. The capacity factor was CF 0.37.
Kahului, which is in climate zone 5, had an interesting combination of inputs. While it had the lowest estimated wind speeds,
the cost of electricity in Hawaii was more than twice the U.S.
average, putting it in a unique position for the concept of zero net
energy housing. Nearly all the turbines considered gave economical
designs, with the exception of the 10 kW turbine. Even though large
housing developments were economical, they are not realistic on
the island of Maui, where space is limited and property is very
expensive. Table 16 gives the results for the best economical
designs for developments with 30 houses or fewer and 100 kW
turbines or less.
Kahului was the only city in which solar hot water was
economical. Fig. 5 shows how the solar fraction of the hot water
supplied varied with the solar panel area. The solar fractions for the
other climate zones are also included in order to demonstrate how
the solar resource impacted the solar fraction.
5. Conclusions/recommendations
5.1. Conclusions
Using the important design characteristics of the housing
developments and wind power and solar thermal systems, the
modeling results showed how the effects of climate, resources,
economic incentives, and prices of energy affected the viability of
zero net energy communities in the U.S. With a healthy market for
renewable energy and energy efficiency products, the successful
development of renewable zero net energy housing developments
1277
1278
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