The U.S. Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced the release July 12 of its 2018 Annual Technology Baseline (ATB), updating a key source of electricity generation technology cost and performance data used to support and inform electric sector analysis in the United States. Now in its fourth year, the ATB documents technology-specific information on a broad spectrum of electricity-generation technologies, including wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, biopower, coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
The ATB integrates current and projected data from various sources into a highly accessible and widely referenced resource for energy analysts. The 2018 ATB is available at atb.nrel.gov and will be featured in a webinar on July 26.
“The Annual Technology Baseline synthesizes key sources of current and projected cost and performance data. It emphasizes development of projections for wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal technologies, and also includes biopower, coal, natural gas, and nuclear,” said Laura Vimmerstedt, NREL energy analyst. “Energy analysts turn to the ATB to understand the status, the trends, and the range of potential futures.”
New this year, the ATB includes financing assumptions that are specific to each technology and change over time. The different financing cases illustrate the distinction between technological and financial effects on the key metrics. The ATB provides three different levels of future technology cost and performance through 2050 to support analysis of future U.S. electric sector scenarios.
Visit nrel.gov for details.