Wind Power - A Modern Clean Energy Solution

Auswind
February 2007 6:05:50 PM

Alan Wood may have doubts about the ability of wind energy to provide power to modern Western economies but only several days ago, the Global Wind Energy Council released figures showing that the total value of new (wind energy) generating equipment installed in 2006 reached €18 billion, or US$23 billion. This growth is led by Europe but is now closely followed by Asia, with China and India seeing the strongest market growth. In the US, wind energy developments are second only to gas in terms of new developments and Canada too doubled the number of wind farms in the past year alone.

At least, finally, the more sceptical commentators accept that Australia has to find cleaner ways of making electricity. The next truism for them to accept is that any energy technology that is cleaner than electricity from conventional fossil fuel plant is going to be more expensive. What is silly is the assertion that capturing carbon and burying it under the ground or the generation of nuclear power will be cheaper than making energy from the wind. This implies that wind energy is not part of a cost competitive clean energy solution.

The wind energy industry around the world is growing in response to clean energy targets put in place by progressive Governments precisely because it is one of the cheapest clean energy sources available today. It has a number of other factors going for it – the technology is tried and tested, the manufacturing required to build wind farms is in place; there is a good supply of people with the expertise and skills to build and operate wind farms; the wind resource is indigenous and not subject to safety fears and the size characteristics of wind farms means that they can respond in a more agile way to growth in energy demand.

Alan is however, spot on with his call for the creation of an open market which allows all cost competitive clean energy sources to compete and establishing a market will require the setting of targets and benchmarks. Wind energy is ready to participate in this market as is evidenced by the global growth experienced so far.

BTW - The so called baseload issue is a non issue. It is the responsibility of the electricity market manager NEMMCO and other relevant regulators to ensure a reliable electricity supply. Electricity networks around the world are right now successfully integrating large amounts of wind energy.

Regards,
Dominique La Fontaine
CEO
Auswind

Tel: +61 3 9670 2033, Fax: +61 3 9602 3055
Email: ceo@auswind.org
Web: www.auswind.org