Key to climate change rule, wind power booming

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration's Clean Power Plan released last week requires the country to use a lot more renewable energy - and a lot less coal - in the next 15 years.

While opponents of the carbon-cutting regulation are preparing for all-out war against it - 'I will not sit by while the White House takes aim at the lifeblood of our state's economy,” vowed Senate Majority Leader Mitch ­McConnell of Kentucky - the rule shines a light on a renewable fuel that's key to the strategy and to Iowa: wind.

According to data out Monday and Tuesday, wind power is booming,

A report released Monday by the U.S. Energy Department suggests that wind is being installed at a rapid rate, that its costs are plummeting, that its technologies are advancing and that it is increasingly creating jobs.

Wind energy in the United States is now at 66 gigawatts of installed capacity, according to the report - providing roughly 5 percent of total U.S. electricity demand.

In Iowa, it's much higher, according to a trade group's study released Tuesday. Wind energy accounts for 28.5 percent of Iowa's electrical generation - the highest of any state - the Iowa Wind Energy Association said.

Jose Zayas, who heads the wind and water power technologies office at the U.S. Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said 13 more gigawatts nationwide are 'in the construction phase” and set to come online by 2016.

'It really dispels some of the past myths that you cannot have significant amounts of wind energy in the system - a variable source in the system - without really affecting the overall efficiency,” Zayas said.

Wind energy now provides 73,000 jobs nationwide, the new report determined.

In Iowa, the majority of wind energy jobs created are in the manufacturing sector, building or supplying wind turbines and components. Siemens, for instance, manufactures wind blades in the state.

Over the next 15 years, Iowa could see an average ranging from 483 to 6,424 wind-related jobs each year depending on how much wind power installed, according to the association report, prepared by an assistant scientists in the economics department of Iowa State University.

Perhaps most striking, the national report found that the wholesale cost of wind energy - bought under a 'power purchasing agreement,” in which a utility or company buys power from a wind farm under a long-term contract - is now just 2.35 cents per kilowatt-hour. That's the lowest it has ever been.

'At 2.35 cents per kilowatt-hour, wind is cheaper than the average price of wholesale electricity in many parts of the country,” said Ryan Wiser of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a lead author of the new U.S. report.

It's important to note that costs would not be so low without the wind production tax credit that covers wind projects that began by the close of 2014. Still, the low cost may help explain why companies ranging from Google to Yahoo to Microsoft have been entering into power purchase agreements with wind farms to help power their data centers.

And as costs decline, a key technology trend is helping further advance the sector. Simply put, wind turbines are getting taller and bigger overall.

That increases the amount of electricity that can be generated from a wind turbine, since there is more energy to be captured higher in the air, and since bigger rotors can generate more power at lower wind speeds.

Since 2007, a third of new electricity generating capacity in the United States has been from wind. The Department of Energy envisions the possibility of getting 20 percent of the U.S.'s electricity from wind by 2030.

Iowa, which is already above that percentage in the state, is 'well-positioned to benefit from helping other states meet their reduction goals by selling excess wind energy, infrastructure and services,” the wind association said.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.