Wind offers potential to fill our energy needs

Wind energy – both on land and offshore – has been falling in cost almost as dramatically as solar power. It’s down well over 90% since 2000.

The relevant technologies are still improving. Furthermore, wind has some advantages over other forms of electricity generation, including other renewable generation systems. For instance, wind generators can be installed in far more places than hydroelectric or geothermal generation plants, both of which require very specific geology.

On average, a well-sited wind turbine will produce about twice the amount of energy over a year as a photovoltaic solar installation of similar nameplate capacity. Wind power is also more consistent than solar power. Wind produces more energy at night than during the day, which makes it an excellent complement to solar systems.

Given price trends for solar, wind and energy storage systems, the combination of solar and wind on the same site, with storage anywhere on a nearby grid, may become the most cost-effective generation system for new large-scale electricity within the next 10 years.

Although the airspace a wind turbine requires to capture that energy is about seven times the amount of space required for solar, the wind turbine’s support post takes very little space on the ground itself. Therefore, it’s possible to install wind turbines with less impairment of other surface uses than ground-mounted solar.

The area that a wind turbine re­quires to generate 1 megawatt­-hour of energy is about a quarter of the area required for the same generation from a hydroelectric dam. However, the space wind actually requires is much smaller, again because the support post itself takes very little ground area. On the other hand, a hydroelectric dam provides recreational lakes and drinking water reservoirs.

In short, wind energy has high potential to help meet the need for new generation in Washington. Land-based wind energy development is well advanced; over 2,000 megawatts of land-based turbines are already operating. However, the best land-based wind resources in Washington are in the mountains, and in some areas north and east of Yakima.

Offshore wind has additional potential. The technologies and engineering systems required to install durable wind systems on the ocean floor, to produce energy using the even more consistent winds that naturally occur along ocean coasts, and the additional systems required to take that energy onshore, have long been under development in Europe. They have now been proven commercially. Their costs are falling. These systems are starting to reach the U.S.

There are no major offshore wind farms serving Western Washington yet, but our side of the state has significant offshore wind energy potential. The National Renewable Energy Lab estimates Washington’s offshore wind generation potential to be thousands of megawatts. The biggest wind resources are off the Pacific coast – a lightly populated area that would require significant transmission line development.

Development in, say, Grays Harbor, won’t address the transmission constraints in the northwestern counties that we discussed last week. However, there is a promising area for wind development, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, from which power could be developed and brought ashore on Whidbey Island, to help provide new local generation in northwestern Washington.

Successful offshore wind development requires attention to migratory bird routes, siting and construction that minimizes sea life impacts and some attention to visual aesthetics. European experience, particularly, has shown that these concerns can be addressed.