Working Paper: NBER ID: w26114
Authors: John W. Anderson; Gordon W. Leslie; Frank A. Wolak
Abstract: We investigate the relationship between accumulated experience completing wind power projects and the cost of installing wind projects in the U.S. from 2001-2015. Our modeling framework disentangles accumulated experience from input price changes, scale economies, and exogenous technical change; and accounts for both firm-specific and industry-wide accumulated experience. We find evidence consistent with cost-reducing benefits from firm-specific experience for that firm’s cost of future wind power projects, but no evidence of industry-wide learning from the experience of other participants in the industry. Further, our experience measure rapidly depreciates across time and distance, suggesting a stable industry trajectory would lower project costs.
Keywords: Wind power; Learning-by-doing; Project costs; Econometric modeling
JEL Codes: L94; O31; O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| experience accumulated by developers (C88) | future project costs (H43) |
| experience depreciation rates (D25) | future project costs (H43) |
| firm-specific experience (L20) | cost to install a megawatt of wind generating capacity (D24) |
| doubling of a firm's own experience base (D25) | cost to install a megawatt of wind generating capacity (D24) |