‘HIDDEN’ WIND COSTS DWARFED BY ‘HIDDEN’ FOSSIL COSTS

‘Hidden Cost’ Of Wind Power vs. Conventional Power Plants

Tina Casey, July 27, 2014 (Clean Technica)

“…[A so-called hidden cost of wind power] has been touted by the fossil fuel industry as an argument against integrating more wind power into the grid, but according to [calculations by the American Wind Energy Association] the ‘hidden cost’ for conventional power plants in Texas is 17 times more than wind…[The] calculations apply to the cost of contingency reserves needed in case of power plant failure…[A] typical Texas household with a monthly electricity bill of $128 per month would be shelling out 4.3 cents per month for the additional contingency reserves required by wind power…[Using the example of Texas grid operator ERCOT, which requires 2800 megawatts of fast-acting contingency reserves for a conventional power plant failure, the cost is] 76 cents per month for a typical Texas household…In order to make the case that wind energy is more expensive to integrate into the grid, the fossil fuel industry has been ignoring the [17 times higher] cost of integrating conventional power plants…” click here for more

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