(471e) Economic and Energy Impacts of Wind Energy Expansion in the US Using Multi-Regional Input Output (MRIO) Tables.

Renewable energy sources help reduce the environmental load of the energy sector. However, when new renewable energy sources, such as wind energy infrastructure is deployed in a region, it can have economic and energy consumption impacts both in the region being deployed and the regions which interact with the deployed region due to supply chain impacts. It is important to quantify these multi regional impacts associated with wind energy expansion to understand what are the regional economic sectors that are being impacted and how their energy consumption pattern changes. In this study, we use an economic multi-regional input output (MRIO) table developed for the US to assess the multi-regional economic and energy impacts of wind energy expansion in the US. The US MRIO table was developed using the Industrial Ecology Virtual Lab project that uses non-survey approaches to build MRIO tables with the help of different national and regional level statistics followed by constrained optimization. In this study it was assumed that 500 megawatts capacity wind energy farms were installed in the already top ten wind energy producing states. The developed US MRIO table, coupled with input output analysis, was then used to find out how the deployment of wind energy in these ten states affect the remaining 42 regions in the US. The local impact data of installing wind turbines in each of the ten states was obtained from the National Renewable Energy Lab’s Jobs and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) model which was used as the feed data to perform input output analysis on the developed US MRIO table.

The changes in economic throughputs of different economic sectors in each of the 52 regions was quantified. The total economic impact was found to be 26 billion dollars of which 3 billion dollars was associated with the states where no new wind energy capacity was installed. Installation of new energy production capacity also results in change in energy consumption by different economic sectors across US. Using the US-MRIO model and the energy intensity of manufacturing sectors, the energy consumption increase due to addition of wind farms was found to be about 6952 trillion of btu for the total change in economic throughput. Primary metal manufacturing and Machinery manufacturing sectors stood out amongst other manufacturing sectors with considerable change in energy consumption with an increase of 3074 trillion of btu and 1537 trillions of btu. The change in energy consumption was found at a four census (North, South, Midwest and West regions of the US) regional level.