US Wind Industry Installed 3,600 MW So Far This Year, Still Faces Policy Uncertainty
The US wind energy industry installed over 1,600 MW in the third quarter, and nearly 3,600 MW for the whole year, but still faces policy uncertainty.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) published its US Wind Industry Third Quarter 2015 Market Report on Thursday, highlighting the more than 1,600 MW of new wind energy capacity that has been installed in the country during the third quarter, bringing the year’s full cumulative new capacity up to nearly 3,600 MW. However, despite the billions worth of investment the industry is bringing in, and the number of well-paying jobs the industry supports, the US wind energy sector is still facing policy uncertainty in the face of a possible cessation of the Investment and Production Tax Credits.
“We are on the cusp of greatness,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA. “There are over $20 billion worth of wind farms under construction right now, creating well-paying jobs and spurring economic development in rural communities across the country. This growth is in jeopardy however, as continued policy uncertainty could throw the wind industry off yet another economic cliff.”
The US installed a total of 848 turbines in the second quarter, across 13 projects in 7 different states, with Texas accounting for the most capacity installed so far this year, 771 MW, followed by Oklahoma with 398 MW, Kansas with 201 MW, and Illinois with 175 MW. For the year, the US has installed 1,862 turbines totaling 3,596 MW, more than double the 1,254 MW installed during the first three quarters of 2014.
US Annual and Cumulative Wind Power Capacity Growth
As of the publication of the report, the AWEA was aware of 13,250 MW worth of construction taking place across 102 projects in 25 states, including 1,250 MW of new construction announcements made during the third quarter.
However, despite the obvious growth and benefit of the US wind industry, politics is playing its hand and creating enormous uncertainty, which is and will continue to have a dramatic impact on the industry’s future growth. Specifically, a “tax extenders” package has been sitting in Congress for awhile now, which would extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC), both of which have played an important role in the growth and success of the US wind energy industry.
“Extending the Production Tax Credit and the Investment Tax Credit this year for the longest practical term will help wind power grow our economy and deliver more savings to American homeowners and businesses,” said Kiernan.
Another barrier that has stepped in to prevent the wider-spread of wind in the US includes the need for easy access to ample transmission infrastructure.
“Building new transmission infrastructure is essential to enabling more low-cost wind energy to power American homes and businesses,” said Michael Skelly, Founder and President of Clean Line Energy. “With more transmission, we can bring wind energy from areas where it’s abundant and cheap to areas where it’s needed. It’s an exciting time for the wind industry as there are new transmission projects—currently awaiting decisions from federal authorities—that will bring about thousands of megawatts of new wind development.”
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The PTC is way cheaper than the externalities not added to the cost of fossil generation. Because politically that can’t seem to go forward, these supports are the next best thing. 1% of US generation from wind is in the neighborhood of 16 GW. I’d like to see that kind of number per year for wind, and solar a bit more, since their capacity factor is lower.
Depending on where they’re located, with today’s turbine designs I don’t think it takes installing 16 GW of capacity to produce 1 percent of U.S. generation. It’s more like 12 or 13 GW these days.
I’d favor having developers of wind, solar, and geothermal bid on the tax credit amount for capacity to produce say 1.5% generation each year. Kind of an auction style. this instead of a fixed amount set by the bill.
Yes, look at the vast amount of resource at 50% and higher CF with 110m towers. If we go to 140m then we are looking at 65% CF wind. http://apps2.eere.energy.gov/wind/windexchange/windmaps/resource_potential.asp#states – Scroll to the graph at the bottom to see the data.
You don’t even have to go to 110m towers to get 50% capacity factors in the Dakotas. 85m towers with 110m diameter rotors on 2.0 – 2.5 MW machines can get you that.
Current policy is that the PTC ends in December 2016. The only uncertainty is a remote hope that Congress will reverse this and extend the tax break. The consistent line of Congressional Republicans since President Obama’s election has been to oppose everything he wants, and it is very unlikely this will change.
After reading that article about England’s RE support costing about as much as was saved by lower wholesale prices, I’m wondering whether extending the PTC would actually cost taxpayers anything.
2016 is an election year. With public opinion swinging toward doing something to lower carbon emissions we might see wind subsidies extended. The “starve the government” group seems to be running out of steam.
But nothing can really change before the end of 2016 especially when so many House districts are gerrymandered like crazy. It is almost a certainty that the GOP will hold the House no matter how big a Democratic wave happens to crash ashore next year. Additionally, we’ll be stuck with whatever crazies have already lost their election until January 2017. So either the lame-duck Congress at the end of 2016 will extend it, or we’ll have to bring the ITC back from the dead in 2017, leading to more uncertainty in the industry. And this is just for solar, right? The wind PTC has been dead for years if I’m not mistaken.
Change always lags behind need, especially if you’re counting on a legislative body run by those who hate government and want to stymie it.
Renewal of the tax breaks depends on a Democratic clean sweep in 2016. This is not a rational bet, but watching the implosion of the GOP in both Congress and the presidential nomination race, you can’t rule it out. If it happens, why stop at second-best policies?
The solar ITC in particular is a poor incentive, since it does nothing for low-income
roof-owners, and makes developers dependent on high cost tax equity
finance (i.e. rich guys and Wall Street intermediaries).
The best policy would be a uniform carbon tax. Next best for solar might be a refundable tax credit for energy-saving and energy-producing home improvements.
There has been moves by Obama and California to more evenly distribute things. CA changed the EV incentive accordingly.
No, there is a lot of Republican support for the wind industry.
I don’t think there’s much chance of Democrats taking back the House, but I do think the less extreme Republican House members are sick of letting the 40 most extreme members make the decisions.
I think it’s time for targeted subsidies. The windy center is now installing wind for under 4c/kWh. Nothing else is that cheap. Nothing. No need to subsidize the cheapest. Subsidize wind where it has yet to build infrastructure, specifically in the Southeast. Subsidized offshore wind. Subsidized EVs for working people, create a market for $25k EVs.
And figure out how to get a few more states to establish a carbon tax. Let other states see how more renewables = lower cost electricity.
The PTC was initially proposed by Grassley, republican, of Iowa.
Even with Republicans, there is a lot of pressure to get with it. States like Iowa love wind power. The states with most resistance are coal states. Not even conservative Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, some of the most wind rich areas, can stop wind despite ALEC and Koch and being oil heavy states. I do wish Nebraska and the Dakotas would get with the program.
And Wyoming has one of the biggest and potentially most productive projects in planning, to bring power to California.
Once wind business gets established, even Republicans say ye$$.
Dakotas are showing themselves to be some kind of stupid. They have this huge, short term opportunity. If they had any sense they would be incentivizing building of transmission lines so that they could take advantage of their long term wealth in wind power.
Not South Dakota. And I’m pretty sure North Dakota is starting to install wind farms.
State funding of transmission lines might make more sense than funding sports stadiums. Start pumping cheap wind to the coasts and that’s some very long term revenue.
“State funding of transmission lines might make more sense than funding sports stadiums.”
Yes and then with a little delayed gratification they could have their cake and eat it by paying for the sports facilities with revenue from the transmission lines and filling them with workers building and maintaining the wind farms.
But to your original point, they are installing wind farms, but at a snail’s pace. 100’s of MW per year when HVDC lines would allow them to put in at 10 to 100 times that rate. They currently have to utilize low capacity transmission lines and so cannot begin to touch the state’s potential of 100’s of GW at >50% CF. This graph shows the potential. Keep in mind that 3MW / km^2 is a pretty safe number for land productivity: https://handlemanpost.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/wind-potential-chart-sd-072015.jpg
There might be more noises in that direction now that tax income and ordinary income from shale oil has tanked.
Sorry I don’t share your optimism. Paul Ryan is the new GOP speaker for the house. I was just reading he favors eliminating any RE subsidies to help balance the budget, …but, of course, does not see any harm in continuing the much larger tax breaks (subsidies) for fossil fuels. Kinda says it all, doesn’t it?
Yes, there are clearly some republicans in favor of Wind, and even some tea party players in favor of Solar, but I don’t see this as the majority. Then there’s the popularity of Trump and grossly ignorant opinions like Tuttle above… I dunno …could be a rough ride for RE after this coming year …I certainly hope not, but…
Let’s see, is Hillary Clinton electable? She isn’t Barack Obama.
How about Bernie Sanders, with “socialist” proudly attached to his name?
Then there’s the popularity of Trump.
If he fails then Ben Carson is actually not a crazed loud mouth, like the rest of the GOP candidates. Still he does believe in AGW. He has said we should end oil subsidies, but then says we should use that money to promote ethanol use in gasoline. A very dated and foolish view, imo. He says nothing in favor of Solar and Wind, beyond the ingenuity of Americans meaning we can find alternative sources. Again, a dated view, we’re way beyond that with Solar, Wind, Storage, and EVs. It’s already industrial build out time for all of those. “alternative sources” could mean anything. Won’t get my vote without backing Solar, Wind, Storage, and EVs. …maybe he is electable in 2016 though?
I am concerned we might see an Tony Abbott style federal government in 2016. I’d rather we didn’t have to learn the lesson that fossil fuels are a dying industry the hard way, like the Australians are. Be nice to keep the Solar, Wind, Storage, and EV industries growing in the USA, like they are really starting to now. We need that manufacturing for our future.
2016 will be very interesting.
“Still he [Ben] does believe in AGW.”
Um i think you accidentally forgot to put a ‘not’ in there. Ben does not believe in climate science.
“I know there a lot of people who say ‘overwhelming science,’ but then when you ask them to show the overwhelming science, they never can show it,”
“There is no overwhelming science that the things that are going on are man-caused and not naturally caused.”
Corrected. Thank you for pointing out my mistake. Interesting Ben Carson can understand the science behind immunizations so well, but not believe the science behind AGW at all. The evidence IS “overwhelming”.
It is interesting. I know a lot of very smart people who don’t believe climate science. People with masters degrees in engineering. I guess it goes to show that being successful and smart in a particular field is no guarantee that a person will understand another field. Im sure Ben was an amazing neurosurgeon/doctor but a climate scientist he is not. LOL
Certainly the “news” media deserve blame for not doing its job. That and a very successful campaign by the oil/gas industry.
The guy is a creationist.
He’s opposed to helping those who come from underprivileged backgrounds. However he, himself, was a troubled, violent teen who got where he did thanks to government programs and being given multiple second chances.
He’s like Clarence Thomas who used public programs to reach the top and then wants to pull up the ladders so no one else can use them.
Jerks.
Perhaps a deal can be struck? Trade the ability to export crude for a few years or the keystone pipeline? That’s the way they use to get things done before the GOP became a bunch of pigheaded jihadists that constantly threaten to blow up the government with another shut down.
That’s what I was thinking. Sell the oil to the world and subsidize the wind at home.
But politicians are too timid to risk dealing with “the enemy” (the opposition) in the political environment like we have now.
No. Don’t do that. Offer them something useless. Like Arctic drilling or the Keystone Pipeline. They don’t want either anymore. LOL. Ironic that after all the fuss, Keystone is useless because tar sands are Arctic drilling are economically dead.
What we must do to keep that up is remain vigilant about energy use and cut it further.
The challenge is that Oil has dropped too low. If gas would stay at about $3.00 / gallon we would see rapid adoption of EVs. At $2.00 / gallon the luster of EVs dulls considerably. The key is to grow the EV industry enough so that battery prices keep dropping. At $2.00 / gal the addressable market for EVs drops dramatically. There is a piece of me that wonders if Saudi Arabia is already playing their end game. Pumping their liquid gold like crazy while killing the shale oil and tar sands business and, at the same time slowing the EV industry advance. If they ramp their efforts to diversify and add renewable energy in massive amounts to their infrastructure that will point to this as their game plan.
Don’t think twice about SA end game. Count on it. They are not dumb. It’s all competition to them. But I think it won’t hurt EV adoption in the early phases. Everyone likes to talk economics, but drivers are not rational. Once parity on first cost is reached, and the benefits like silence, responsiveness, clean, low maintenance cost etc are better known, it won’t matter what gas costs. EVs will win on maintenance alone. Once people xperience EVs, if they can afford, they won’t go back. Price is the key.
I partially agree with you but using very unscientific data I can tell you, I would already be driving an EV if gas were at $4.00 / gal. I am putting it off for now due to the current $2.00 / gal.
With gas on $2/gal now is the tile to fill the highway fund. Raise it $0.5/gal then add $0.25/gal each quarter for 2 years. Set aside half new funds for mass transit.
If we only had a functional government….
That would be the fastest way possible for a party to lose the white house. LOL
I do wonder in the future how they will fund the highways. once gas is gone.
Mileage fee for EVs.
I hope the fee will take the weight into account. Im pretty sure for every doubling of weight there is 4 times as much damage to the road. Maybe it will be a wash either way because if big rigs cost more it will be passed on to the consumer by higher prices.
I think it’s the case that big rigs do not pay their fair share of road use fees. I’ve heard claims that if road use was limited to cars and light trucks roads would need very little maintenance.
Someone may have the facts at hand….
Has the dual three way benefit of fixing roads, reducing fuel consumption and accelerating demand for EVs. $.25 / quarter would never fly but start with $.25 and then something like $.05 / quarter. That would provide funding for roads until EVs were a big enough portion of the market that they had to do their part. Likely a charging fee or an up front fee when the vehicle was purchased.
I agree
I look forward to the day when Wind Power exceeds Nuclear
69 GW + 13 GW in the pipeline, and about 6 GW in planning. Getting closer…
A long way to go yet before it matches nuclear energy production.
Starting today. Coming on line 5 or so years from now.
A lot of wind can be brought on line in 5 years.
Wind or nuke projects?
Wind does exceed nuclear production in China.
http://www.earthpolicy.org/images/uploads/graphs_tables/highlights45_windnuclear.PNG
And groups are calling for more solar to make up for lagging nuclear, with 21 out of 27 nuclear projects behind schedule.
“21 of 27 of the projects are experiencing holdups ranging from a few months to two years including for the most advanced foreign reactors, the French-built European Pressurized Water Reactors (EPR) and the Japanese/American AP1000. ”
“Country urged to double solar power goal in order to plug projected nuclear and hydropower shortfalls;”
Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/china-needs-200-gw-of-solar-by-2020–say-industry-groups_100020572/#ixzz3pVMQoSDH
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/7305-China-and-Russia-may-struggle-to-deliver-nuclear-power-overseas
http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/china-needs-200-gw-of-solar-by-2020–say-industry-groups_100020572/#axzz3pK4SWQhn
Very soon China will have much more wind power than the US. But the US is the biggest nuclear country in the world. The gap is closing at both ends, because nuclear is in decline.
Pilgrim just closed.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/10/14/after-pilgrim-closes-nuclear-graveyard/dUSxcJARkGs095MbEcFwkN/story.html
Even some Republicans in the windy red states support renewing the PTC. But if that doesn’t happen this time, can the President do anything to encourage new transmission lines which are essential to adding more turbines?
Would the PTC be as necessary if new transmission is in place since that is a project cost factor too?
Good question. There does not seem to be any legislation designed to encourage upgrading our creaky old neglected transmission system. It badly in need of upgrade regardless. And while the US has not seen an HVDC project in decades, China is forging ahead with plenty of new HVDC connections.
Here is one piece of legislation we can get behind. It opens MLPs, Master Limited Partnerships, to other groups besides oil.
“The legislation would level the playing field between traditional and new energy businesses by helping energy-generation and transmission companies form master limited partnerships, which combine the funding advantages of corporations and the tax advantages of partnerships.”
http://www.coons.senate.gov/issues/master-limited-partnerships-parity-act
support is lacking at the federal level according to the EPA, because they are dumping it on the states to do it. And you wonder why we have a balkanized approach to power and transmission.
“States that have not established clear utility regulations that enable investments in transmission to be reimbursable (i.e., cost recovery), nor coordinated planning and permitting processes, slow the development of utility–scale renewable projects in their territory.”
http://www3.epa.gov/statelocalclimate/state/topics/renewable.html
For more info on US state incentives:
http://www.awea.org/Advocacy/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=4361
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62726.pdf
Clean Line Energy, a group building HVDC is using the American Energy Policy Act of 2005, but working with the feds is like standing in wet cement.
http://energy.gov/oe/services/electricity-policy-coordination-and-implementation/transmission-planning/section-1222
http://www.elp.com/articles/powergrid_international/print/volume-10/issue-6/features/energy-policy-act-of-2005-gives-transmission-a-boost.html
The Clean Line projects at really encouraging but they keep getting stopped by property owners along the proposed route as they see no benefit. Why not pay them a yearly fee for every power pylon on their property as is done with turbines?
NYC is installing a new HVDC power line from Quebec’s abundant hydro projects and the route is under Lake Champlain and the Hudson River for most of its length. Perhaps these clean lines could run under the Missouri, Platte and Red Rivers toward the power-hungry Midwest. Years of NIMBY legal delays and above ground maintenance all add cost that under-river power lines wouldn’t involve.
“they keep getting stopped by property owners along the proposed route as they see no benefit.” Clean Line pays all property owners. They even disclose their terms on their web site. While there may be some who really have legitimate gripes, I do wonder who they all are. Consider that the Koch’s have disclosed that they will spend $1B on the election. Why? And if they are throwing that kind of money at the problem, consider how easy it would be for them to influence a strategically important property owner. Having said that, apparently most of the people showing up at the MO hearings were against. This is a fail on the part of AWEA and the wind industry. They should have gotten behind Clean Line and done a public education campaign in MO to garner support for the project. In any event there are subtle and powerful forces working to create a groundswell of anti-wind sentiment and this is very troubling. Consider that if the HVDC lines get built they will push between 3 and 6 GW each. It will not take many of these to inflict mortal wounds on the coal industry. Is it possible that the coal industry does not realize this? Is it not, therefore, clear why Mitch McConnel has the staying power that he does in the Senate. He has some very powerful backers. This is an interesting piece – https://handlemanpost.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/subverting-renewables-there-are-serious-efforts-to-do-just-that/
Make the PTC PERMANENT. Until fossil fuels capture and sequester ALL of their toxic pollutants AND greenhouse gases, clean wind energy should always be given a small extra incentive.
I’d rather see a carbon tax than a subsidy for wind. But I guess a PTC extension is the best I can reasonably hope for.
All Green Energy holds equal or similar issues of CO² contribution, as invested contributions prior to generation or maintaining such generation. Some though not as CO² intensive in their investment hold other undesired pollutants and long term hazards which occur during their raw materials extraction or creation. —- Energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another for a particular given need. — Thus the only constants of Green Energy, is the displaced usage or destruction of land, and the constant fleecing of the taxpayers and the double fleecing of the rate payers by those who promote, encourage or otherwise participate in this 3,000 year old proven consumer of resources resulting in an overall loss. If local production, local use is unsustainable and a net loss, then too are Grid system productions, with additional power consumptions and losses on larger scales. The way the PTC and the REC’s system is structured and allowed to be traded in a market environment, Coal fired facilities can appear to be Green Energy.
No form of energy is 100% clean, but to claim Wind and Solar produce more CO2 than coal, oil, or NG use is laughable. Even if Wind Turbines and Solar Panels are produced using electricity from coal plants, there’s no way the CO2 produced would out way the clean energy they produce for the next 30 years. …and who says Wind Turbines and Solar Panels need to be produced with fossil fuel energy anyway. Grid electricity is getting greener as we speak. Coal is dying. Wind is still growing rapidly and Solar is still growing exponentially.
Same with being a net loss in terms of energy production or economic investment, laughably wrong. Wind is now the lowest cost source of new energy on the grid in the US. Solar is not far behind and residential Solar can now generate electricity for less than the end-of-grid (retail) cost of electricity in many areas. Next act in this drama will be the addition of very low cost storage. Solar + Storage are already reaching lower cost than end-of-grid electricity in Australia, Chile, and Hawaii. Expect that to happen in Southern California next …and then across the Southern USA.
As far as “fleecing” taxpayers, PTC and ITC are ending, but they’ve clearly done their job of stimulating the production of Wind and Solar in the USA and in dropping the cost of Wind and Solar in the USA. All at a small fraction of the cost of tax breaks still being given to oil, NG, and coal. The continued and much larger dollar investment in oil, NG, and coal is the real fleecing. Why should we continue to give money to the oil industry after a century of support? Why should we be giving any tax breaks to the single most profitable business ever in the history of mankind? Are people like you just completely stupid or what? Why should we the taxpayers be giving corporate charity to large already successful corporations? Why should we be protecting and propping up the very wealthy who unwisely continue to keep their money in these dying industries?
Why would anyone with half a brain continue to invest in dying industries (coal!!!, oil!!, and NG)? …and not want to invest in industries that are clearly growing and will clearly be huge in the very near future? WTF?
Clearly you’ve stumbled onto the wrong site. You need to visit a Faux news site, or bravenewclimate, or breakthroughinstitute, and have your views further reinforced with false information. Troll on dude.
And these turbines, solar panels, and other green energy devices appeared from where? Magic? The energy to produce them came without any CO² requirements? Cutting of forests, that absorb CO² is essentially aiding in maintaining a higher level.
PTC and other incentives funded what, when investors would not?
Einstein is wrong!
Ancient Civilizations chose water power over wind why?
Betz’s law has been broken by a new miracle? [ No turbine can capture more than 16/27 (59.3%) of the kinetic energy in wind. ]
Laws of Physics have been changed in the Name of Green Energy…….
Your paper is published when?
Are you not aware that most manufacturing is done using electricity? We quit burning coal to run steam turbines to turn shafts for belt driven machinery a long time ago.
Each year our grids get cleaner. We’re using fossil fuels to bootstrap renewable energy. Already installed wind turbines and solar panels produce more electricity each year than we use manufacturing turbines and panels.
Rant less. Learn more.
The lifetime co2 cost of solar and wind is negligible compared to gas or coal.
Yes co2 is released to create solar panels but the then co2 free energy it pays back into the grid is very clean. Every energy source will look like this
Source 1:
XX co2 to build
YY co2 to operate
xx+yy = lifetime co2.
Wind and solar blow gas and coal out of the water in terms of lifetime emissions. Thats what matters.
Lifetime (cradle to grave) CO2 footprints –
Nice chart. Can you explain how BioPower allegedly has the potential for negative CO2 footprint with CCS.
I’d have to read the paper. But I’m willing to guess, that takes far less energy…
Grow, transport, consume the biofuel with only renewable energy. Capture the CO2 produced. Sequester.
Could it be done affordably? Can’t say. But it might be interesting to consider. We’re going to need some form of ‘deep storage’ for prolonged periods of low wind/solar input.
Right now we pay a lot for electricity from seldom used facilities when supply can’t otherwise meet demand. Dollars per kWh is not unheard of.
My post above. How BioPower has the potential for negative emissions. Its from the report. This text is under the graphic in the report.
http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Ch09.pdf
From the text under the chart:
“Figure 9.8 | Estimates of lifecycle GHG emissions (g CO2eq/kWh) for broad categories of electricity generation technologies, plus some technologies integrated with CCS. Land-use
related net changes in carbon stocks (mainly applicable to biopower and hydropower from reservoirs) and land management impacts are excluded; negative estimates1 for biopower
are based on assumptions about avoided emissions from residues and wastes in landfi ll disposals and co-products. References and methods for the review are reported in Annex II. The
number of estimates is greater than the number of references because many studies considered multiple scenarios. Numbers reported in parentheses pertain to additional references
and estimates that evaluated technologies with CCS. Distributional information relates to estimates currently available in LCA literature, not necessarily to underlying theoretical or
practical extrema, or the true central tendency when considering all deployment conditions.
Note: 1. ‘Negative estimates’ within the terminology of lifecycle assessments presented in this report refer to avoided emissions. Unlike the case of bioenergy combined with CCS,
avoided emissions do not remove GHGs from the atmosphere.”
Yeah I read that. I guess i missed the last line “…avoided emissions do not remove GHGs from the atmosphere.”
Yes. But its good to check and thanks for asking.
Yes wind adding wind power to the grid lowers GHG emissions.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/265685383_Estimating_the_Reduction_of_Generating_System_CO2_Emissions_Resulting_from_Significant_Wind_Energy_Penetration
This NREL reference
http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Ch09.pdf
shows the GHG emissions from various sources. Its results are a compilation (metastudy) of the many sources which show coal GHG emissions many times that of wind energy, for example. The sources of information date from the 1990s up to the present.
A simple google search for greenhouse gas emissions and LCA shows many results, including this one from wikipedia, that shows many studies, all confirming that coal produces many times the GHG of wind energy. There are also quite a few studies that show adding wind energy to existing grids lowers GHG.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
What stands in the way of substantial wind build out is not the phase out of the PTC but rather transmission to get the high capacity factor, low cost wind power from where it is generated to where it is needed.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/08/04/wind-could-replace-coal-as-us-primary-generation-source-new-nrel-data-suggests/
We need the transmission superhighways from the Great Plains to the high use areas on the coasts. Subsidies are not what is needed. Transmission right of ways are what is needed. Clean Line has a for profit model that is ready to go and the wind power in the best areas such as SE KS is extremely inexpensive and if sold into the East Coast markets does not need subsidies. Good policy would be to develop federal policy that provides the tools to expeditiously provide transmission right of ways. We could extend the land based PTC with a ramped phase out over 5 years to keep the wind industry solvent in less favorable regimes while the transmission lines get built.
Off shore wind is crucial because it is decorrelated with the on-shore wind vastly increasing the capacity credit that can be granted wind power. Because of the importance of off shore wind and its higher cost the PTC should be left in place for it. We should set a goal for the amount of off shore wind we want to see and then create a PTC with a cap to meet that goal.
The impact of wind fluctuations can be substantially reduced by using load shifting. EVs and ice storage are well suited for this. http://cleantechnica.com/2015/08/21/load-shifting-with-electric-vehicles-is-a-great-match-to-wind-in-many-areas/
what % of wind has battery storage?
Gus that is the wrong question. The only reason to two reason to have storage at a wind farm: (1) A small amount so that the wind farm can smooth it’s input into transmission system. (2) The only other reason would be that there is not enough transmission capacity, so during max production you want to store so you can ship later. That might be cheaper than adding enough transmission to support the max from a group of farms. Note that (1) would be true for a coal or hydro plant also during start/stop; but yes it more useful for wind/pv since the smoothing can be used more. For (2) with enough transmission capacity then the storage would be better place closer to where used to avoid distribution over loading. But depending on how markets rules are set up, you might get case where the most money is made by putting batteries at a wind farm (note I didn’t say max benefit).
I hear Bernie supports wind..
It looks like all the comments are from AWEA employees. Joshua believes in the immaculate conception so it’s understood how he believes in wind.
Over the line….
I suspect people in every country tend to think theirs the best and readily see whether other countries could do better. We have a huge, huge problem with that in the US.
The US is probably more economically than ecologically driven. That might be explained by the fact that Europe has been urbanized for much longer and Europe hasn’t had the open space in which they could “throw their garbage”.