Wind Power Production Incentive
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The Wind Power Production Incentive, or WPPI, is a program of the Canadian Government that promotes the generation of electricity from wind power in Canada to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that would otherwise enter the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The government pays about half the excess cost of producing electricity from wind, compared to conventional sources, for the first 10 years of a project.
The United States Government also encourages wind power generation through a 10-year subsidy to public utilities for producing electricity from renewable energy sources. While this Renewable Energy Production Incentive (REPI) applies only to public utilities, non utility generators selling wholesale power to public utilities instead receive a Production Tax Credit (PTC) of the same amount.
Despite a popular perception that wind power is free, the cost of generating electricity from wind (in 2005) is still higher than the cost of generating an equal amount of power by burning coal. This is because the cost of power includes the cost of building a station in addition to the cost of fuel. A wind farm costs about the same to build as a coal-fired power station of similar capacity, but the economies of scale are fewer for a wind farm due to the lower quantity of power produced over the life of a station. Depending on location, wind farms may produce nearly full power output only about 28% of the time, whereas a base-loaded coal-fired station runs at full output more than 85% of the time.
Proponents of wind power argue that the full cost of externalities is not factored into the price of conventionally-generated electricity. Among these hidden costs are environmental effects of pollution, industrial accidents, and lung diseases suffered by coal miners. These hidden costs are not included in the price paid by the consumers for electricity, but carried through the health care system. Including these costs into the price of electricity would make wind power more economically attractive.
[edit] External links
- Natural Resources Canada. Wind Power Production Incentive. Retrieved April 3, 2006.
- American Wind Energy Association. Wind Energy Costs. Retrieved April 3, 2006.
