A Free-Market Energy Blog

Archive

Posts from December 0

Wind Energy Cost: Think Again ($0.15/kWh wholesale prohibitively expensive)

By Tom Tanton -- January 8, 2013

“Once these hidden costs [of windpower] are included and subsidies are excluded, wind generation is not close to being competitive with conventional generation sources such as natural gas, coal or nuclear.”

– George Taylor, quoted below.

“However, to meet the 33% RPS, technical studies show ramp rates may triple, which is not possible for the [California] ISO’s conventional generation as configured today.”

– Clyde Loutan (Senior Advisor, CaISO), “How Intermittent Renewables Impact CallSO.”

George Taylor and I have published a new study for the American Tradition Institute (ATI) that finds that on a full cost basis, wind electricity is nearly twice as expensive as what is typically reported. “The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity” provides an analysis of three major costs that past estimates have ignored.…