What is it about?
This study reveals the immense, previously unquantified potential of repowering the United States (US) onshore wind turbine fleet. By replacing aging turbines with modern technology at existing sites, the United States could more than double its current onshore wind capacity and electricity generation without requiring new land.
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Why is it important?
The study illuminates a critical pathway for achieving clean energy goals. Our findings offer a data-driven foundation for policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers, demonstrating that repowering is a key, yet overlooked, strategy to accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future in the United States.
Perspectives
Our study raises many research questions because we focus solely on technical potential. Real-world repowering is more complex; it involves various stakeholders and faces regulatory and permitting hurdles that we omitted. Through this top-down analysis, we intend to show the "big picture" and spark further efforts to refine these results through localized, bottom-up analyses. While we will continue to explore this space, we also hope to attract the wider research community. Wind repowering especially benefits from local insights that can help refine modeling approaches like ours.
Andreas Muehlbauer
Stanford University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The potential for onshore wind repowering to hasten the energy transition in the United States, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 2026, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2521050123.
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