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For Your Community
Wind power development can significantly help revitalize rural communities that have been depressed due to the loss of manufacturing overseas, and the increased difficulties faced by small farmer/landowners. Wind is clean, renewable, and increasingly economical. This is an incredible opportunity to create a cleaner environmental future for ourselves, our children, and our communities.
The operation of the wind farm is compatible with existing land use. Typically, landowners receive payments as rent or royalty for use of their land. Typically, the land taken out of active agricultural production is only about .5 acres per megawatt. The primary use of the land is for access roads to the wind turbine locations, a small area for the wind machine and electrical transformer, and a graveled pad area for a crane for construction and maintenance.
During construction of a wind generation facility, the project can use 200-300 local workers and contractors depending the size of the site. A good rule of thumb is 1 technical is employed for every 8-10 turbines installed. Once construction is completed, a full time staff is required to maintain ongoing operations.
Wind power development is very capital intensive and results in sizeable local and state property taxes that ultimately supports schools, hospitals and county services. Estimates vary based on the size of the project but history has shown that wind projects can pay over $200 million in sales and property taxes over the life of the project. More specifically, the cost of constructing a wind power plant is about $1 million per megawatt, with approximately 80% of the cost attributed to a wind turbine and tower. The rest is invested in electrical systems, underground high voltage and low voltage electrical cables, wind turbine foundations, and roads. Various jurisdictions treat property taxes differently, depending on state and local statutes. Expanding the local tax base keeps energy dollars in the local community instead of spending them to pay for coal or gas electricity produced elsewhere.
While wind technology may require a higher initial investment than fossil-fuel generators, this can be offset over the life of the project. The “life-cycle” costs of wind projects are much more competitive with other generating technologies due to a lack of fuel costs and lower operating expenses. Critical components to estimating wind energy’s cost of electric production are capital costs, financial costs, operating costs, and characteristics of the wind resource. Wind projects reduce rate increases paid by utility customers due to volatile fossil fuel prices.
According to a Renewable Energy Policy (REPP) study, boosting U.S. wind energy installations to approximately eight times today's levels could create 150,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide, with most jobs being added in the 20 states that have lost jobs in recent years. REPP estimates that every megawatt of installed wind capacity creates about 4.8 job-years of employment, both direct (manufacturing, construction, operations) and indirect (advertising, office support, etc.). This means that a 50-MW wind farm creates 240 job-years of employment.
NYSERDA estimates wind energy produces 66% more jobs per kilowatt-hour than natural gas. A recent study in Colorado yielded an important conclusion. Funding the creation of Wind power facilities brings in more money to the in-state/local economy than projects to build/fund Gas or Coal electrical generation facilities. This ties very nicely into the mission of section 9006 of the US code, and is why IER is clearly committed to Wind power facilities to help boost the local communities we serve.
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