Glen has a good point about reliability for solar energy. The same seems to be true for wind energy.
Wind power is the one alternative clean and renewable energy that every one in the nation can sign up for in one of two forms, right now... today. You do not have to wait for your local electric utility to take action. You can do this without them.
The wind energy movement is supported two ways. One way is to buy actual kilowatt hours made by wind turbines from one of the nations many wind farms. Many utilities already have firm contracts with these generators and the ones that do usually offer their customers "Green Power" or "Wind Power" for a small additional fee. You may complain about paying more for power generated by a free fuel, but if you can’t handle the extra 1.25 to 2.5 cents a kilowatt hour for a clean alternative, you sure can’t handle buying a photovoltaic solar system. This really is the biggest bang for the buck, today.
Go to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency to see if your utility offers Green Power. (http://www.dsireusa.org).
If your utility doesn’t have a wind power program you can still by "Green Tags" from several sources. Green Tags create revenue that directly supports the development of wind power projects across the nation. The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) is one of many sources of green tags. Their web site (https://www.greentagsusa.org) says, "During 2000, BEF developed its Green Tags product, in recognition of the demand for renewable energy in places where utilities do not offer that choice. Green Tags represent the environmental benefits that occur when clean, new renewable energy is substituted for power that is produced by burning fossil fuel. BEF has been the pioneer in offering this choice to customers worldwide. Revenues that are generated selling Green Tags are reinvested in new forms of renewable energy."
Sterling Planet (http://www.sterlingplanet.com) is another source for green tags and green tag information.
Buying wind energy directly through your utility and buying green tags through a third party provider like Sterling Planet, both support renewable energy and reduce green house gas emissions. Either type of wind power purchase puts more renewable energy in the power grid pipeline, so to speak. However, there will never be specific electrons with your name coming to your house to run you equipment. You are just supporting the growth of this industry. Just like buying regular power supports the fossil fuel industry in most cases.
Wind Energy is one of the fastest if not the fastest growing renewable energy generation source in the USA today. People that I talk to out on the street feel like utilities are holding back on the construction and support for wind and other renewable energy sources. Wind is about six percent of the nations electricity generation mix. Despite the fact that wind power has been used for centuries, the wind power generation industry is still a fledgling industry. It needs the same government and public support and subsidy that the fossil fuel industry has enjoyed for decades.
Even though the wind generated electricity industry is new, according to the American Wind Energy Association , wind generation faciltites have been coming on line and increasing power production at phenomenal rates.
Year -Megawatts -Percent Growth
2003 -6,353 -35.57%
2004 -6,725 -5.86%
2005 -9,149 -36.04%
2006 -10,492 -14.68%
Sources: U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Program & AWEA,,
© 2006 by the American Wind Energy Association.
Some feel that the only reason that wind generation has not become a bigger percentage of the US electricity generation portfolio is due to NIMY opposition ( Not In My Back Yard), but there are other reasons for wind power limitations.
One of the main limitations is that the best wind resource is a long way from transmission resources. So, no matter how much electricity could be make with the wind, you can’t deliver. The load is a long way from the wind resource and transmission expansion is costly and time consuming.
So at this point, wind resource maps showing how we could power the nation by wind power alone are misleading. You can’t get there from here. Not just yet anyway.
Another challenge to wind energy production is that the wind is not always on. This fact causes utility executives and planning engineers to insist on duplicating power generation resources with coal and other fossil fuel resources just to make sure that they can keep the lights on when the wind stops blowing. Experts say that wind power is only producing 25 percent of the time, even in the best wind resource areas.
Some even argue that wind power is increasing the green house gas problem because power generation companies worry that their profits will not be sufficient to cover the higher costs of some of the best new clean coal technologies. So, they insist on building new capacity with old technology that adds more green house gas than the new technologies.
There maybe a point when wind generation facilities are so spread out across the nation that somewhere the wind will always be blowing hard enough to make electricity. Once this diversity occurs, wind maybe more reliable in meeting loads nationwide. When this happens, the argument to duplicate base load generation will loose its strength. The diversity argument is a good one yet it is still a chicken and egg situation where no one wants to agree to do without power until the infrastructure is in place and no one wants to put the infrastructure in place until someone has a load to use the power.
Worldwide the USA is a little behind in the deployment of wind generation. Denmark, one of the world leaders has a long proven industry in wind generation, they feel that wind generation goes a long way to reduce fossil fuel generation needs and green house gas emissions.
"The Danish Wind Industry Association did an in depth life cycle analysis of wind power generation through the use of wind turbines. This analysis showed that modern wind turbines recover all of the energy spent in manufacturing, transporting, installing, maintaining, and scrapping them when their productive life is finished within 3 months of operation. This is quite impressive considering that the average life span of modern turbines is estimated at 20 years of design life.[1] A 600 kW turbine is estimated to save 4300 tons of coal from being consumed per year. This is a significant savings in CO2 emissions which are estimated to increase by ~75% by the year 2020." (Aaron Racicot, ESE 589,Term Project, 07/24/03)
The first step to identifying wind resource potential is to review the NREL Wind Resource materials. This information describes average estimated wind speeds throughout the nation. Wind speed is the gold standard for wind production. If you have a class 3 or better wind resource, you may have an economically viable project. With wind speeds lower than Class 3, you are out of the game altogether. The big challenge is to find out if your area has enough wind to constitute a resource rather than an annoyance. While the NREL maps can narrow the search area, the only real way to find out if your area has a wind resource is to do a wind resource study. The web has a host of sites that can get you started and some areas offer free meta towers and data loggers to help with your search. Western Area Power Administration is one resource for customers in western states.
This web site has a nice run down explaining wind speed classification. (http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Atmosphere/wind_speeds.html&edu=high)
While wind study is not rocket science, there are specific methods required to do a meaningful study. Putting up a wind generation facility just because you think its "really windy here" may risk wasting your money.
This book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about wind resource studies. Wind resource assessment handbook: Fundamentals for conducting a successful monitoring programBailey, BH ; McDonald, S.L. ; Bernadette, DW ; Markus, M.J. ; Elsholz, K.V. [AWS Scientific, Inc., Albany, NY (US)] Publication Date 1997 Apr 01 OSTI Identifier OSTI ID: 486127 Report Number(s) NREL/SR--440-22223; ON: DE97000250
Next time I plan to talk about the nuclear energy electricity industry.
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