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Department of Energy Wind Power 2014 Report Finds It’s Dropping Dramatically in Cost

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the whooooooooosh dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Nine states now generate more than 10 percent of their electricity from wind.

After years of uninterrupted success, wind power experienced a bit of a pause around the start of this decade. Prices for hardware reversed a decline and bounced upwards slightly, with installations dropping accordingly. But a new report from the Department of Energy shows that this bounce is now over. The price paid for wind-generated electricity has now reached an all-time low, and construction is bouncing back. Still, regulatory uncertainty may now be creating a boom/bust cycle for wind.

The report starts by reviewing the size of the wind market in the US. In 2014, it represented a quarter of the new additions to the US' generating capacity, a bit down from the average of 2007-2014, when it represented a third. Just under five GigaWatts were installed by the US, placing it third, and well behind China's 23GW. China now has nearly doubled the US 66GW of cumulative capacity.

Because of the US' excellent wind resources, however, it led the world in generating electricity last year. As a percentage of a country's total electricity generated by wind, the US ranked 15th, at roughly five percent. There are sharp regional differences however, with nine states generating more than double that percentage of their electricity using wind, led by Iowa, which generated 29 percent of its energy from the air.

The report expects the number of new wind farm installations to drop off because a federal production tax credit expired in 2014.

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  • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:00AM (#221646)

    Is there any room in the wind market for the small-time mom-&-pop family-owned wind farm? No I didn't think so.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @11:27AM (#221649)

    Sure. There are plenty of wind power settups you can buy for your home, and many states have net metering. Go for it.

  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:49PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:49PM (#221677) Journal

    You can buy small turbines but everyone I have looked at is woefully inadequate to generate a modest amount of power unless you are in a windstorm. They are advertised with very enticing power outputs like 1, 2, 3 or even 5kW. You start thinking, woah, I only need a fraction of that, the rest I sell to the grid! Then you realize you have to mount it on a pole with a height of at least 18 to 22 meters and the span of the blades is around 5 meters. In a steady breeze you are lucky if you will be getting over 500W. You need a storm to generate the rated output power. Most green vendors never reveal the power output graph which only starts to show serious output when the wind speed is around 20+MPH or 9-10 m/s. Look at average wind speed graphs for your region and you will see that a $10,000 5kW wind turbine is a crap investment unless you live in a very windy area which isn't very common. And even then it's still a crap investment because it a giant, ugly, mechanical pinwheel. Solar is so much easier to maintain.

    And as for full size turbines, lease your land to a wind farm. Otherwise I am sure full size, MW turbines will cost tens of millions including the installation.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:25PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:25PM (#221722) Journal

    Huh?

    Anything that can't be done as a mom and pop operation shouldn't be done?

    I suppose if that is your meaning, you might look to utilize one of these [wikipedia.org] on your farm. You see plenty of these in flyover country. Some are rusted and have fallen into disuse, but I'm fairly certain a lot are still operational.

    Harnessing wind power is as old as the hills. But whatever, clearly it's a new-age communist hippie left-wing feminist gay agenda leftist big government Nazi Illuminati fractional-reserve income tax wealth redistribution Kenyan Muslim conspiracy to make Christmas illegal and give your jerbs to illegal immigrants! (Did I leave anything out?)

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:01PM

      by Absolutely.Geek (5328) on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:01PM (#221955)

      I find it offensive that you left out the the double amputee transgender furries and their conspiracy to take over the world

      --
      Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:12PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 12 2015, @10:12PM (#221956) Journal
    Welcome to economies of scale. And there may well be an opportunity for "mom and pop" in isolated markets.