Reliant Energy

Wind Energy Is one of the most affordable Sources of Electricity

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While the all-in worth of wind energy directly depends on the wind speeds at a specific website, examining national trends within the put in the price of Reliant Energy definitively shows that wind energy has become a particularly cheap supply of electricity.

Reliant Energy

The average U.S. shopper pays concerning twelve cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. That worth includes the value of generating power, the wires that deliver it from generators to our homes, and therefore the price of running the utility business. the particular price of electricity generation alone are a few things like two to four cents per kilowatt-hour — that’s the worth that wind energy has got to vie with to achieve success.

Based on knowledge compiled within the Wind Technologies Market Report, wind energy systematically comes in at or below the going market rate for electricity. Wind energy is commonly purchased in massive blocks through a long-run contract known as an influence contract (PPA). The figure below shows the historic worth of wind energy PPA contracts since 1996. The diameter of every circle is that the size of the wind energy facility inbuilt megawatts, and therefore the height of the circle on the coordinate axis is that the contract worth in greenbacks per megawatt-hour (or greenbacks per one thousand kilowatt-hours).

In recent years, a massive quantity of wind energy has been procured at or below worth of twenty greenbacks per megawatt-hour — or simply two cents per kilowatt-hour. that’s competitive with typical wholesale electricity market costs by any life.

But it’s necessary to notice that {the worth|the worth|the value} of wind energy offered through a PPA is associate degree all-in price that has the result of subsidies like the federal wind production reduction, which provides a tax grant of eighteen to twenty-three greenbacks per power unit hour of energy made. after you exclude the assembly reduction and appearance at the Levelized price of energy (LCOE) from interior wind, it still comes in at a particularly competitive price of but fifty greenbacks per megawatt-hour (5 cents per kilowatt-hour). For comparison, the Energy data Administration estimates a best-in-class combined cycle fossil fuel power station has an associate degree LCOE of concerning fifty-four greenbacks per megawatt-hour (5.4 cents per kilowatt-hour). thus even after you account for the result of the federal wind production reduction, wind energy remains a particularly competitive generating resource.

Advantages of Wind Energy

One of the advantages of wind energy changing into absolutely competitive with standard fossil-fuel electricity generation is that it places important pressure on the wind trade to continually improve the value and performance of their wind turbines to remain one step before the competition.

Industry knowledge shows that wind turbines deployed in 2016 have larger diameter rotors, which permit them to capture additional wind overall, and better hub heights, which permit them to capture the more-steady winds obtainable at higher altitudes. the common rotor diameter in 2016 was 108 meters, a thirteen % increase over the previous 5-year average, whereas the common hub height in 2016 was eighty-three meters, up to one % over the previous 5-year average. As a result, the common generating capability of recently put in wind turbines within us in two016 was 2.15 megawatts, up to eleven % from the common over the previous five years.