The AWEA Blog: Into the Wind


Fact check: Pacific Research Institute report by Benjamin Zycher filled with inaccuracies

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 Michael Goggin, AWEA Manager-Transmission Policy

The Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch recently reported on a faulty report filed by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI). PRI is a think tank with ties to fossil fuel industry-funded groups like the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The report’s author, Benjamin Zycher, has had his anti-wind misinformation debunked before.

Throughout this most recent report, Mr. Zycher makes numerous serious errors in an attempt to argue that renewable energy will increase electricity costs for Californians. In reality, ...


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Bergey, Pika Energy receive DOE distributed wind awards

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 Carl Levesque, Consultant

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) awarded $150,000 each to Maine-based Pika Energy and Oklahoma-based Bergey Windpower Co. under its Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) for distributed wind power.

The CIP initiative is intended to expand and revitalize U.S. leadership in domestic and international distributed wind markets by helping U.S. manufacturers lower the cost of energy from their turbines.

Bergey, a long-time industry player, will use its award to help the company identify component improvements that will optimize its Excel 10 turbine technology for increased performance and reduced cost.
 
Pika Energy, meanwhile, will use its award to develop an advanced blade manufacturing process, which ...


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Despite flaws, DOE collaborative report shows more wind and transmission saves ratepayers money

Posted: 23 Jan 2013 Michael Goggin, AWEA Manager-Transmission Policy

A planning collaborative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy has released a final report on its analysis of several electricity generation and transmission options in the Eastern U.S.  In spite of some serious shortcomings, the report clearly indicates that building more wind generation and transmission is the most cost-effective way to meet the region's energy needs.


Following up on the Phase I report released at the end of 2011, the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC), which included utilities, regulators, and other stakeholders, has released the final report for Phase II, the final phase of the analysis. Phase II developed more detailed transmission plans to accommodate generation build-outs for the following three of eight scenarios ...


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At event 'trifecta,' industry looks forward following PTC passage

Posted: 22 Jan 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

Guest blog by Rebecca Willard, Administrative Assistant to AWEA Public Policy and Public Affairs teams
 
La Jolla, Calif., played host last week to nearly 1,000 wind industry professionals for a "trifecta" of AWEA events to kick off the New Year—the Regional Wind Energy Summit-West; Wind Project Operations, Maintenance & Reliability Seminar; and Wind Environmental Health & Safety Seminar.

While each event hosted its own bevy of nuts-and-bolts technical seminars, the underlying theme running throughout the week was clear: With the PTC extended for another year, it’s now time for the industry to look to the future.  As AWEA Western Regional Representative Tom Darin stated, “[T]he PTC extension keeps wind power in the game, and ...


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Public opinion watch: Marylanders strongly back offshore wind power

Posted: 22 Jan 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

A new poll released last week finds that an overwhelming majority of Maryland citizens (72 percent) support a $2-per-month fee being added to their electricity bills to support development of offshore wind power.

 

In an article on the survey, the Southern Maryland Newspapers quote Abigail Hopper, energy advisor to Maryland governor Martin O'Malley (D), as saying, “We think the more Marylanders learn about the opportunity for offshore wind and the more they learn about the cost of fossil-based fuels, the more they support proposals like the governor’s offshore wind proposal."

 

Mr. O'Malley has ...


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Opinion: At home with the wind

Posted: 22 Jan 2013 Tom Gray, Consultant

An impressive and thoughtful opinion piece on wind power by Andy Robinson of Plainfield, Vt., appeared on the independent news website Vermont Digger recently.

 

A brief excerpt:


"Driving through the Pacific Northwest, I thought about the “wind wars” back home in Vermont, and all the people I know and admire on all sides of this debate. The arguments about wind are partly about aesthetics, but also about habitat: is it worth fragmenting our forests in the interest of producing energy? This is an important question, but I’ve noticed an undertone that makes me uncomfortable: the idea that our landscape is somehow more special than others, and therefore more ...


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Top 10 Mythbusters from 2012

Posted: 16 Jan 2013 David Ward, Consultant

AWEA is ringing in the New Year by showing off some of its best work in 2012. The following 10 articles, letters, op-eds, and blog posts highlight some of our best efforts to counter inaccurate and misleading information about wind power in the news.

Let’s all enjoy the trip down memory lane and as always, to learn the truth about wind power, please visit http://www.truthaboutwindpower.com/.

Huffington Post
What Critics of Wind Power's Incentive Miss, by Denise Bode
“As the prospect of Congress extending wind energy's primary incentive, the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC), has grown in recent weeks, so have both support and criticism.

“On the ...


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Fact check: Brookings’s Ebinger off target with wind criticism

Posted: 16 Jan 2013 David Ward, Consultant

Charles K. Ebinger’s January 7 Brookings opinion piece about the production tax credit does get one thing right. It is true that over a project’s lifetime, wind power ultimately drives investment and consumer savings that more than pays for the tax relief it receives. That’s the result of a smart and worthwhile federal policy doing its job.

However, the U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that wind power can provide 20% of America’s electricity needs by 2030. That is a stark contrast from the estimate that Mr. Ebinger provides.

And that isn’t the only fact Mr. Ebinger gets wrong on wind power. The consumer savings provided by wind ...


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Fact check: Marshall Institute attacks wind power, ignores facts

Posted: 15 Jan 2013 Michael Goggin, AWEA Manager-Transmission Policy

The George C. Marshall Institute, a fossil-fuel-funded "research organization," has published a report examining the economics of wind energy.  The report ignores recent reductions in the cost of wind energy, even though those reductions have been repeatedly documented by two national laboratories.

 

The report's authors incorrectly claim that the wind industry has failed to achieve the “30% decrease in costs predicted by the learning curve,” as the industry doubled its installed capacity. However, the Marshall Institute report only looked at wind energy cost trends for the period 2001-2008. Before releasing their final report in December 2012, the authors should have consulted a ...


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Fact check: Spectator (U.K.) overlooks facts on wind power and wildlife

Posted: 15 Jan 2013 John Anderson, Director of Siting Policy

The Spectator, a U.K. newspaper, recently carried an article that misrepresented wind power's effects on wildlife.

 

First, the Spectator article begins by citing, without question, a recent negative report on wind turbine design from the deceptively named U.K. anti-wind group Renewable Energy Policy Foundation.  While the report merits little attention because of its source, the European Wind Energy Association's (EWEA) response is carried here: Fact check: Study on turbine lifespan 'just more anti-wind propaganda', December 24, 2012. In addition:


Wind energy’s impacts must be viewed in context with other forms of ...


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