Wind Power is Making Electricity Cheaper

[txlibdem]

Wind Power is Making Electricity Cheaper (Exxon: Wind to be Cheapest Source of Electricity)
May 2, 2011 By Zachary Shahan

Aside from the fact that wind power is cheap, there is another important factor at play here – merit order pricing.

Wind (and solar) have no fuel costs and low operating and maintenance costs (O&M). That means that once the systems are up and connected to the grid, they can afford to sell their power for very little money. In the case of wind, the O&M cost is about $0.01/kWh.

...

When the call goes out for electricity, wind can sell it’s power for about a penny and not loose money (at that moment). And, with a $0.018 feed in tariff (FIT), wind can actually give its energy away and still make money! That means that wind is always going to be able to underbid any fuel-burning producer.

What actually happens is that a call goes out for X units of electricity. The least expensive providers get picked up first — that would be wind, then hydro might be next, followed by nuclear and coal. If wind, hydro and nuclear can provide all X units, coal gets left out. And same could go for nuclear if wind and hydro can cover it all.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/02/wind-power-is-making-electricity-cheaper-exxon-wind-to-be-cheapest-source-of-electricity/

This is information that bears repeating... I don't know if anyone posted this before (forgive the repeat). But let's get real. We need clean energy *and* we need cheap energy and today wind is making that happen.