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2013 Shaping Up to Be a Good Year for Wind

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Photo by Lydd. Some rights reserved.

Photo by Lydd. Some rights reserved.

Despite the hurried efforts of Congress to avoid the fiscal cliff, wind power (and renewable energy as a whole) received an annual extension of its tax credit within the federal budget compromise. This renewal comes with a procedural change as well which states that, for wind projects to be eligible for the tax credit, they only need begin construction before December 31, 2013, where previously projects needed to be completed and operational to be eligible, a requirement that saw many projects stall as their developers realized they could not be completed before the end of the year.

The tax credit can be claimed in two ways: as a production credit, at a rate of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first decade of production, or it can be claimed as an investment credit, which involves a flat payment of 30 percent of construction costs. With problems still facing the wind industry in terms of competing with fossil fuels and integrating wind plans with the U.S.’s larger energy schema, developers need all the governmental health they can get.

Growth issues aside, however, it appears from preliminary numbers through November 30, 2012, that wind power capacity may have edged out natural gas and coal as the leading energy source in 2012, with installed wind power adding up to 6,519 megawatts compared to natural gas’ 6,335 megawatts. As equipment (turbines, etc.) grows cheaper and more efficient, we can only expect (or at least hope with conviction) that this figure will grow in 2012.



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