Wind-plant performance declines with age, and the rate of decline varies between regions. The rate of performance decline is important when determining wind-plant financial viability and expected lifetime generation. We determine the rate of age-related performance decline in the United States wind fleet by evaluating generation records from 917 plants. We find the rate of performance decline to be 0.53%/year for older vintages of plants and 0.17%/year for newer vintages of plants on an energy basis for the first 10 years of operation, which is on the lower end of prior estimates in Europe. Unique to the United States, we find a significant drop in performance by 3.6% after 10 years, as plants lose eligibility for the production tax credit. Certain plant characteristics, such as the ratio of blade length to nameplate capacity, influence the rate of performance decline. These results indicate that the performance decline rate can be partially managed and influenced by policy.

风力发电厂的性能会随着年龄的增长而下降，下降的速度因地区而异。在确定风电厂的财务可行性和预期寿命时，性能下降的速度很重要。我们通过评估917座电厂的发电记录来确定美国风力机队与年龄相关的性能下降率。我们发现，在运行的前10年中，按能源计算，旧年份植物的性能下降率为0.53％/年，较新年份植物的性能下降率为0.17％/年，这是先前估算的较低端。欧洲。在美国独有的情况下，由于工厂失去了生产税抵免的资格，我们发现10年后性能大幅下降了3.6％。某些工厂特征，例如叶片长度与铭牌容量之比，影响性能下降的速度。这些结果表明，绩效下降率可以得到部分管理并受政策影响。