Wind was $70 per MWH in 2009, now is $20 per MWH.
Which is cheaper than fossil fuels, which is nice.
However, are prices going to keep declining? Will they go down another 70% in the 2020s? Maybe instead of costing $20 per MWH, maybe get down to $5 per MWH by 2030?
If so, are there ideas on what advances will help with the technology?
There are economies of scale: it is cheaper on a per unit basis to make 5,000 of something than 500 of something.
At the moment, they are continuing to make taller and taller windmills. There is no immediate or absolute limit in sight. I don’t know of any new technology, so I expect production prices to continue to drop, but not as dramatically.
As the price of a commodity is based on supply and demand (that is, what the market will bear as opposed to the cost of manufacture), I doubt you will see much more of a drop. Baring technological advancement, the industry is likely to consolidate and grow by larger companies buying the small ones, providing price stability (corporate-speak for modest price increases). Significant technological advancements are unlikely as research can be very expensive (which is the reason for the high price initially) and to remain competitive in the current market, the current technology appears to be sufficient.
Aside from the cost of the wind turbine is the cost of the infrastructure (transmission and storage). Reduction in these costs are likely with technology, lowering the cost of all renewables, not just wind.
I suspect the price will eventually bottom out, as the technology becomes more mature, and there are fewer and fewer good wind farm locations available. Not sure when that’ll be though.
The big question, AFAIK, is around storage, as well as how far wind can be expanded- are there enough economical and adequate sites to place wind farms on to produce enough power to displace natural gas and coal? Storage may be the kicker; what do you do when the wind isn’t blowing, or there are short-term spikes in power demand? Right now, fossil fuels can be relatively easily ramped up to produce more power, but that’s not so with wind(or solar).
Minor nitpick. Not all fossil fuel generation easily ramps up and down. Gas does, coal does not.
As far as storage, right now they’re using battery storage to replace what are called gas peaker plants. These are the power plants that do the ramping up/down to allow for variation in demand from minute to minute. Other gas plants don’t ramp up and down so easily. But batteries ramp up and down even easier than gas. Batteries and pumped hydro are also being used to extend the supply of solar power into the evening. And of course, they can be used to bridge the variations in wind power.
Oh, sure. I just meant that fossil fuel plants have some latitude in how much they generate- they’re not all run at 100% of rated capacity all the time, a capability wind doesn’t have- it’s either blowing adequately or it isn’t.
There’s still plenty of places where you can put turbines and generate electricity economically.
The issue that will become more common down the line is getting that power to where it can be used. All sources have this problem in one form or another. With wind all those turbines scattered around need to connect into the grid in a cost effective way.
Our grid sucks. Texas is all by itself and has immense potential for wind power that can be sold all over the place. But they are bumping into limits all too soon.
A good grid, with a lot of interstate things like Pacific DC Intertie also helps with that stupid “the wind doesn’t blow all the time” nonsense. You move the power from where the wind is blowing to where it isn’t.
Storage is far less of a problem than people think.