Wind energy economics Print E-mail
Earlier wind farms used to be considered as a risky investment but that has changed. Earlier, since there was lot of capital involved in setting up wind energy plants, the government would give tax fillips to those who ventured to set up such energy plants but these tax concessions would not be renewed consistently in the ensuing budget which is what made it risky for those who decided to set up wind energy plants. Obviously, it would not be the cost of wind which would be the prohibitive factor but the cost of setting up wind energy plants which would be. Although, on the whole, when on makes a comparison ,wind energy still proves to be a little cheaper than other methods of generating power such as coal, thermal, nuclear, etc it is still quite expensive. Let us have a look at some wind energy economics: The initial cost of setting up a 1.5 megawatt tower along with its turbine and then hook it up to the national grid could cost about two million dollars. Natural gas costs about sixty five dollars per megawatt hour; coal would cost about ten dollars less whereas wind would cost another ten dollars less. The Department of Energy in the US feels that wind energy is the fastest growing technology not only in the US but in the whole world. Those who have invested in industries related to the generation of wind energy have seen their investments double within a short span of five years. What has added credibility to the companies that are involved with generating wind energy is that quite a few reputed financial institutions have thought it prudent to invest in such companies (at one point, these companies were considered to be risk propositions). General Electric bought Enron's wind turbine manufacturing division about seven years ago and today has succeeded in generating business worth two billion US dollars within a period of three years. Another such example would be of Citigroup Venture Capital which had invested one billion US dollars in India's Suzlon Energy manufacturing division. The Investor network on Climate Risk has agreed to invest about one billion US dollars in wind energy generation also similar non polluting methods of generating power such as solar energy. All these indicate that the demand for wind energy economics will certainly rise over the next ten years. One of the largest wind farms in the US is located in the Northwest which is the Stateline Wind which has a total of more than four hundred and fifty turbines seven years back and this generated about three hundred megawatts of electricity which assisted in lighting more than seventy thousand homes win the Northwest.


 
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