Those red lines are what ALEC is telling legislators and the news media, and it's wrong.
ALEC is a group funded by the Kochs and like minded corporations who want to put a stop to wind energy. In this chart they pretend to forecast future electric prices if more wind farms are built. As an attempt to act all neutral and fair, they claim to run 3 different models, just to be sure.
How the fuck do they come with a straight face saying wind will cost multiples higher if we continue to build them. When wind costs more than Coal, Nukes, and Natural Gas generation, ALEC won't need to fight it. It will die on it's own. But, wind is the cheapest, that's why every new system is sold out for years before the tower goes up. You can read my three posts below to see the data. ALEC claims by 2020 rates will go up $660 on residents if we allow more windmills.
ALEC is a boiler plate right wing law writing service that hands out ready to vote laws to lazy red states on: Mexicans, gays, abortion, voting rights, healthcare, tax, and in this case attempting to make it less desirable to approve wind energy.
low $30's /MWh.
ReplyDeleteI'm unclear what $30's is exactly.
ReplyDeleteThis is the price for one MWh MegaWatt Hour, a unit measuring power equivalent to one million watts, continuously for one hour. In the US it might power 330 or more houses for one hour, in the third world it could power thousands of homes for one hour. MWh, is also equal to 1,000 Kilowatt Kwh.
That wholesale price can be figured a number of ways, sometimes the term levelized is used, this is suppose to be a global expense number, capturing the cost of construction, fuel, upkeep and operation, in this way various forms of generation can be fairly compared, and when this is done, the most recent wind turbines are more competitive than conventional forms (coal and so on), I think solar is getting close to these good numbers too.