http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/7869/hawaii-wind-farm-receives-us117m/">Hawaii wind farm receives US$117m
The US Department of Energy (DoE) has offered a conditional commitment on a US$117 million loan guarantee to finance construction of a 30 MW wind energy project in Kahuku, Hawaii.
Kahuku Wind Power LLC will install 12, 2.5 MW wind turbines with a battery storage system for load stability. The loan guarantee is supported by funds from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.
“This investment will create jobs and cut our dependence on oil, while promoting America’s leadership in the global race for the clean energy industries of tomorrow,” says Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Construction of the Hawaiian wind project will create 200 jobs and, after completion, 6-10 full-time jobs, estimates the project sponsor, First Wind Holdings. The wind power output will be sold to Hawaiian Electric Company.
Let's play "Do math!!!!"
One hundred and seventeen million dollars to fund a 30 Mega"watt" wind plant, where the quotation marks refer to the fact that the "watts" are actually
peak watts.
A typical capacity utilization for wind farms - except in fantasy land - is 25%.
This means that the
actual installation will produce 7.5 Megawatts of
average power.
(Note there are some very expensive batteries in this system, but they still do not change the amount of
energy generated for $117M.
A typical power plant size is 1000MW. Thus to scale this system to produce as much energy as a typical 1000 MW plant, about $15.5
billion dollars would be required.
Experience, given the rotting turbines at South Point on the Big Island, is about 20 years, meaning that in order to produce this trivial amount of energy, Hawaii might be required to spend 5.8 million bucks a year, subsidized by the Government, which is broke and is the world's largest, by far, debtor.
Personally, I am in favor of spending these kinds of sums on infrastructure that is robust, reliable and will represent an investment for
many future generations, sort of like the Oyster Creek Nuclear plant, completed in 1969 and still powering my state, producing more
energy than all the wind turbines in Denmark.
There are two kinds of investments, wise and foolish, and this, in my view, is a
foolish investment.
Hawaii, I note, has the highest electricity rates in the entire United States, 29.2 cents per kwh.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/hawaii.html">Summary Statistics, Hawaii.
It gets, currently, about 8.8% of its energy from so called "renewable" sources, primarily wind energy. (In theory they also have considerable geothermal resources on the Big Island, which would be infinitely cleaner than strewing abandoned metal across their landscape.)