| By :
Roger Brown
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) announced recently that wind turbine power strength grew approximately 15% in 2010. This is pretty surprising given the slow economy and the lack of money available for investment. There was double the amount of new wind power projects at the beginning of 2011 as there were at the beginning of 2010. However, in the past 5 years, wind growth averaged over 39%. But, wind turbine manufacturers need not fret much over the decrease - a 15% increase in sales is pretty amazing improvement in any economy and in any industry. As power prices driven by fuel cost increases continue to rise, so will the drive for everyone to go off-grid and become more independent. President Obama has restated his drive to support renewable energy to spur the creation of new jobs and cut carbon emissions as well. With the increase in popularity prices are coming down. Elizabeth Salerno, chief economist with AWEA, said, "wind prices are very affordable right now." She went on to say that wind is an energy source that utilities should feel comfortable locking into for the next 20-30 years because it offers a stable supply vs. fossil fuels which are subject to the political instabilities of the Middle East. Salerno also said that the U.S. wind industry is on track to produce 20% of domestic electricity by 2030 - a target was laid out by the Bush administration. California has gone a step further and mandated that 33% of the state's electricity be created from wind and other renewable by 2020. Here are a few statistics about U.S. wind that may interest you: • Worldwide, the energy produced by wind turbine power is approximately 65,000,000 kilowatt-hours each year…that is enough to light up about 6,000,000 houses. • In the United States, wind contributes approximately 16,000,000 kilowatt-hours each year. That's enough electricity for about 1,600,000 houses. • By the year 2020, electricity production from wind should be approximately 25,000,000 homes. • The total cost to install a wind turbine is $.02-$.06/kilowatt-hour. The majority of the wind growth is coming from larger projects from independent power producers and utilities. However, small wind turbines are a market segment on the rise. In 2010, new capacity was also added for new small wind generators mounted on roofs and on towers at peoples' homes. One very big motivator currently for wind turbine power is the government has a Wind Tax Credit for investment in energy technology that uses renewable resources. It is a whopping 30% which makes the economics of formerly marginal projects seem much better.
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