Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to meet future demands is high. For Canadian utilities, the potential for
selling of surplus power to the United States presents a useful conduit for
attenuating the stochastic nature of wind power. For Canadian wind power
generators, the US electricity market represents a lucrative emergent mar-
ket opportunity.
hese three factors alone suggest prodigious opportunities for wind
power development. here have been jurisdictions in Australia, Denmark,
and Germany where wind power contributions to the electricity mix have
exceeded 40% without serious disruption to grid stability or excessive
investment in back-up capacity. 10 However, none of these jurisdictions
possess anywhere near the hydropower generation capacity of Canada. If
Canada's provincial electricity grids were more efectively integrated and
management of power generation were coordinated, a nationwide electric-
ity generation system comprised only of hydropower (60%) and wind power
(40%) is conceivable.
In order to satisfy demand in 2040, approximately 264,000 MW of
installed wind power capacity would be needed to meet a 40% contribution
from wind power (assuming 30% capacity factor) 11 . Assuming 3 MW rated
capacity for the average wind system, meeting the 40% target would require
the installation of approximately 88,000 turbines. Although this seems like
a vast amount, it merits mention that at the turn of the twentieth century,
at least 600,000 turbines were in use for farm irrigation in North America. 12
Clearly, a modern day, utility-scale wind turbine is larger and more aestheti-
cally invasive than the wind powered irrigation systems that were employed
in the 1900s; however, the amount of land required to accommodate a mod-
ern turbine is not signiicantly greater. he point is if there is a will to reach
40% wind power contribution, there would be a way.
here are half a dozen good reasons to cultivate a will to adopt much
stronger wind power development policies in Canada. First, the combi-
nation of escalating demand in the United States for clean energy, dif-
iculties in expanding US electricity generation infrastructure capacity to
keep pace with demand growth, 13 a beneicial trade agreement (NAFTA),
and 6416 km of shared border gives rise to conditions that allow Canada
to beneit economically by exporting low-carbon electricity to the United
States.
Second, whether Canada chooses to install wind power for domestic
use, for export or for both purposes, employment prospects in the wind
power sector far eclipse the employment prospects in the conventional
power sector. In 2010, Canada's electrical utilities employed a little over
110,000 people, amounting to 1.15 jobs per megawatt of installed capac-
ity. Conversely, based on global estimates of employment in wind power,
Search WWH ::




Custom Search