Wind Power's Growth Blown Away by Tax Uncertainty

[Bill USA]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/wind-power-s-growth-blown-away-by-tax-uncertainty-20131209

Uncertainty over expiration of the wind production tax credit has dealt a devastating blow to the wind industry's forward march.

The numbers tell the story of boom and bust. In 2012, the industry had its best year to date, installing more than 13,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity nationwide. Utilities shied away from signing new power purchase agreements in the second half of the year, however, because of uncertainty over whether they could complete construction before the tax credit's sunset. As a result, only 1.6 megawatts of wind-generating capacity were installed in the first half of 2013.

"It used to be that your project had to be online and providing electricity to the grid before the credit expired, which was a very hard and fast deadline," Alex Klein, research director for clean and renewable-power generation at IHS Cera, told National Journal Daily. "So by the time the credit was extended as part of the fiscal-cliff deal, the damage was already done to the industry."

Things are a bit different this time around.
(more)

[kristopher]

1. That gives us insight into how quickly wind can come online.

We are expecting about 7GW in 2014, so 13GW in one year represents a significant amount of power; and that was with a less-than-aggressive policy. The article does a good job of explaining how (Republican induced) uncertainty can throw a monkey wrench into the works. The 60GW of capacity we already have is actually a lot, but I'd love to see what would happen if we committed ourselves to really rolling out both wind and solar.

[Bill USA]

2. I agree, it would be great to see how much we could accomplish with a real commitment to renewables.

cf: "I'd love to see what would happen if we committed ourselves to really rolling out both wind & solar."