At a recent Capitol Hill hearing I was surprised to learn that it was far from common knowledge just how competitive wind power has become. As a result, a bit of a data and price update memo may be of use, even to those who follow the industry. In addition, I will summarize the data on a few of the least cost wind farms in the nation. Wind energy in the United States has continued to grow, and represented 19 percent of the new nameplate capacity added to the electrical grid in 2006 . With a total cumulative U.S. capacity of 11,575 MW (1 percent of total U.S. nameplate capacity) at the end of 2006, wind energy is now often directly cost competitive with fossil-fuel generation, and at times is a least-cost supply option. Representative Wind Project and Wind Power Costs Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) recently examined the estimated installation and power costs for twelve recent wind projects, finding that 2007 wholesale power prices for these projects range from 2.5 cents/kWh to 6.4 cents/kWh. Six of the projects provide wholesale power at less than 3 cents/kWh. These prices reflect available state and federal incentives, such as […]