Wind power's decreasing cost makes it more competitive with other energy sources

WASHINGTON, August 11 (UPI) - Wind energy is cheaper than ever before in the United States and advances in turbine technology have helped make America the No. 1 global producer of wind energy, according to a new Energy Department report.

The news came Monday on the heels of President Barack Obama's signature Clean Power Plan and aims to make the case for his administration's continued push toward more renewable energy. The plan set state-by-state standards for carbon dioxide emissions that were more stringent than expected, with a 32 percent reduction nationally by 2030.

Wind power's decreasing cost makes it more competitive with other energy sources, especially on the Midwestern plains, where windy days are frequent and construction costs are often lower, said Ryan Wiser, co-author of the Energy Department's 2014 Wind Technologies Market Report.

The price of wind power last year was 2.35 cents per kilowatt-hour, less than half of the cost in 2009 when prices peaked at 7 cents per kwh.

The cost of installing wind turbines has declined and productivity has increased as the wind energy industry matures. Competition among companies like General Electric and Siemens has grown and manufacturing has become more efficient, according to Wiser, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Longer blades generate more power, and they're being used more widely as the cost of production and installation go down.

Access to wind helps, too.

"We have a really darned good wind resource in the U.S., really second to almost no other country on a worldwide basis," Wiser said.

"The cost of wind energy has reached a point where it's a viable economic choice for these companies as well," he added, referring to power companies' opting to purchase wind energy. "They can potentially save money on these wind energy contracts...," he said in a phone interview Monday.

The U.S. ranked first in the world for energy production in 2014, according to the Energy Department report. It was second to China for capacity.

But the U.S. still ranks below many European nations for the proportion of wind the country relies on for its total energy consumption. The U.S. got just 4.9 percent of its total energy consumed in 2014 from wind.

"Well it's a start, right?" Wiser said. "To put that into a little bit of context, hydro power generation in the U.S. represents roughly six percent of our electricity generation. So wind energy is approaching the same scale as hydro power."

And American wind projects are more efficient than their Chinese counterparts. The electric grid in China cannot always handle all of the energy China is capable of generating, Wiser said.

Technological advances have boosted the output of wind energy in recent years. Taller hubs and longer blades in particular are the biggest improvements that help generate more power.

In a sign of the industry's growth, U.S. exports of turbine blades and power storage equipment rose from $16 million in 2007 to $488 million in 2014, the report says.

The government report projects a rosy outlook for wind project financing through 2016. Production tax credits will likely be available through next year but not beyond, unless they are renewed by Congress.

"With the PTC [tax credit] now expired and its renewal uncertain, however, wind deployment beyond 2016 is also uncertain," said a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, adding that the carbon-cutting Clean Power Plan might create new markets for wind energy.