Sunday, July 20, 2008

A simple 10-year program can build-out 10% to 15% of US electricity from windpower: renew the PTC

During the next 10 years, the US should construct enough windfarms to allow more than 10% of all US electric power to come from windpower.

During 2007, the windfarms which were constructed in the US in that one year are expected to generate 0.4% of total US electricity in the future. And past experience with cancelling the Production Tax Credit (PTC) shows that the quantity of windfarm construction typically drops in half when the PTC has been cancelled. Obviously, it will take a very long time for windpower to supply 10% of US electricity if windfarm construction is only replacing 0.2% of total US electricity per year.

For 2008, the US is generating a cumulative total of 1% of its electricity from windpower. And 76,000 full time jobs currently exist in the US windpower industry. But the US would need about 150,000 full-time jobs, specifically for windfarm construction and manufacture, to allow windpower to expand to 10% to 15% of US electricity during a 10 year period.

GE's website proposes that its largest windpower turbines, if placed in the most optimal locations, might be able to generate electricity at wholesale costs of 3.5 to 4.0 cents per kilowatt-hour. (However nearly all actual locations for windpower turbines are less than ideal, so perhaps 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour can be achieved based on current technology.)
http://www.gepower.com/businesses/ge_wind_energy/en/about_wind_ener.htm

Additional jobs for manufacturing windpower could be in the US, if windfarm projects buy wind turbines from US manufacturers, such as GE or others.

During 2008 there are 76,000 jobs in the windpower industry. This means only one worker per 2000 jobs in the US is currently working at building renewable windfarm energy. Supporting and increasing the number of these windpower jobs is dependent on extending the Production Tax Credit for renewable (windpower) energy, which was set to expire Dec 31, 2008. TARP legislation in 2008 has extended the windpower PTC for only one year.

The overall windpower which was installed in the US during 2007 is expected to generate 16 millon megawatt-hours of electricity per year
(reference: http://www.awea.org/pubs/documents/Outlook_2008.pdf ). The new windpower installations during this one year period will be supplying about 0.4% of the total electricity (4000 million megawatt-hours annually) which is being used in the US today.

Windpower-electricity is a proven technology. And the best time to begin the major build-out is right now. Let's renew the Production Tax Credit for windfarms. An extension of the PTC is the best way to double or triple the current manpower in the US windpower industry, thus allowing a 10-year build-out to attain 10% to 15% of US electricty from windpower.

Perhaps the right time to end the windpower PTC would be when 3%, or 5%, or 10% of US electricity comes from windpower. But it is too early to stop stimulating windfarm construction today, when only 1% of US electricity comes from windfarms.

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