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Article Excerpt
Wind energy is environmentally clean, the wind itself is free, and the technology is efficient. Yet neither Montana nor the United States can be powered by wind alone. Wind is a supplemental source of power, providing a vital contribution to the U.S. economy, environment, and energy independence, says Phil Stiles, operations manager for Invenergy, owner of the Judith Gap Energy Center.
"Wind power is the most efficient way to make electricity. The fuel costs are extremely low, the technology is mature, and maintenance of the machines is a manageable expense," Stiles explains.
A mechanical engineer with a master's degree in Renewable Energy Engineering, Stiles works in Invenergy's Chicago office. Invenergy is an investment company that works on the development, acquisition, and management of large-scale power generation. It owns the 90 wind turbines that comprise Invenergy's Judith Gap Energy Center, which lines both sides of Highway 191 between Harlowton and Judith Gap.
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Each turbine cost $1.5 million, from installation to operational readiness. One turbine can create enough power to supply about 600 homes with power. Invenergy estimates the total construction cost, including construction, supplies, and labor, at $180 million.
Through a contract with NorthWestern Energy, the default power supplier for most of western and central Montana's electricity, Invenergy adds their wind power to the mix of other fuels NorthWestern uses in its grid of underground and overhead supply lines.
For privately-held companies like Invenergy, wind energy is profitable. "It is the fastest growing segment of the energy industry," Stiles explains. Invenergy is one of the largest wind energy companies in the United States and is also active in Europe and Canada.
Stiles fully understands the limitations of wind. "You have to have a nice strong wind resource--not a problem in Montana. Yet even then, there will be 20 to 30 percent of the time that the wind will not blow."
Wind is currently only 1 or 2 percent of the national energy supply, but it could easily be 40 percent as the number of turbines increase throughout the United States, Stiles says.
Polls show strong public support for wind power. Almost nine out of 10 Americans (87 percent) support expanded wind farms, according to a 2005 poll by Yale University. In June, a Public Opinion Strategies conference called for 25 percent of the nation's energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2025. The group released poll results showing that 98 percent of Americans see shifting to domestically-produced, renewable energy sources as important for the country.
According to the Energy Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, wind was the second-largest source of new power generation in the United States in 2005, after natural gas, and is likely to be so again in 2006. Demand for wind as an energy source, as well as concern for the price and supply of fuels, is driving the record growth in wind power.
One of the big issues with wind energy is reliability not the reliability of the turbines, but of the wind. It's a fact of nature that the wind does not blow all the time and that's why wind farms will never be able to provide more than just a portion of U.S. energy needs.
The fickle nature of wind requires energy suppliers such as NorthWestern Energy to coordinate backup supplies, meaning "free" wind isn't truly free. Besides the cost of developing the wind farm, the cost of wind power is blended with the cost of backup energy purchased on the spot in a process called "firming."
According to the industry group American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), U.S. wind energy installations now exceed 10,000 megawatts (MW) in generating capacity, and produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the equivalent of more than 2.5 million American homes. A megawatt of wind power generates enough electricity to serve 250 to 300 average homes. More information is available on the AWEA Web site: www.awea.org.
Even with high consumer demand, wind turbines supply less than 1 percent of the power used in the United States. According to the Department of Energy, a best-case scenario for wind turbines is that they could supply only 20 percent of U.S. energy needs....
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