The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with funding from the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office, works with dozens of small business across the United States to enable wind technology as a distributed energy resource through the Competitiveness Improvement Project. The goals of the CIP are to make distributed wind energy cost competitive, improve its interoperability with other distributed energy resources, and increase the number of small and mid-scale wind turbine designs certified to national testing standards.

Launched in 2013, the CIP supports manufacturers of distributed wind turbines—typically small businesses—through competitively-awarded, cost-shared funding to 1) optimize their designs for increased energy production and grid support, 2) test turbines and components to national standards to verify performance and safety, and 3) develop advanced manufacturing processes to reduce hardware costs. Beyond funding support, awardees can receive technical assistance from NREL to improve their turbine designs and testing plans. Since 2013, NREL has awarded 36 subcontracts to 20 companies, totaling just over $8.4 million in investment, while leveraging millions in additional private-sector funding.