Wind energy prices drop to 2 cents per kilowatt hours

Wind energy prices in the United States are being driven lower by technology advancements and cost reductions, a report from the U.S. Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory revealed.

Specifically, it found that prices offered by newly built wind projects average around 2 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). It found that lower installed project costs, along with improvements in capacity factors, are enabling aggressive wind power pricing. After hitting 7 cents per kWh in 2009, the average price has dropped to around 2 cents per kWh. Lower wind turbine equipment prices are also pushing down overall prices.

“Wind energy prices ¬– ¬particularly in the central United States, and supported by federal tax incentives – remain at all-time lows, with utilities and corporate buyers selecting wind as a low-cost option,” Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist Ryan Wiser of the Electricity Markets & Policy Group said.

The report, called the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Technologies Market Report, also found that wind power capacity additions equaled 7,017 megawatts (MW) in 2017. Overall, it constituted 25 percent of all U.S. generation capacity additions in 2017. Further, roughly $11 billion was invested in new wind plants.

Wind energy contributed 6.3 percent of the nation’s electricity supply. Additionally, it represented more than 10 percent of total electricity generation in 14 states, and more than 30 percent in four states – Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

Also, the report revealed that employment in the wind sector reached a high of 105,500 full-time workers at the end of 2017.

The three largest turbine suppliers in the United States – Vestas, General Electric Co., and Siemens Gamesa – has one or more domestic manufacturing facilities in operation.