A guest opinion last week (Why we should stop putting up wind turbines, Nov. 4) proposed that we should stop putting up wind turbines, citing a number of reasons and concluding (from a number of researched sources) that “they don’t work ... and nuclear power is the only practical and safe solution.” While I do not contest any of the references quoted, I do refute their application to our electricity experience in P.E.I. As the smallest Canadian province that is also an island, we should heed the experiences of others but not ignore the energy initiatives and successes that P.E.I. has demonstrated so far.
P.E.I. consumes both renewable wind and non-renewable nuclear electricity so we are able to compare. All P.E.I. owners of wind turbines include annual maintenance, capital depreciation, debt financing costs and end-of-life disposal in the unit (KWh) price. Even at around 7.5c per KWh, our government ownership does return an annual profit for future investment into energy projects. Battery storage is not used commercially in P.E.I. to compensate for the varying wind energy so additional energy is imported when the wind doesn’t blow. However, the daily variation in the energy we use can be similar to the variation in wind energy generated so back-up generation – called capacity – is an additional cost for all the peak energy we use with or without wind energy.
In comparison, P.E.I. is contracted to consume an annual base load of non-renewable nuclear generated electricity from Pointe Lepreau in New Brunswick. This 30MW commitment is not available 365 days each year but is a useful contributor to our non-emitting energy sources. However, we are still contributing to the major $1.3B refurbishment of the power station in 2012 resulting in a KWh unit cost that is around 50 per cent higher than wind energy.
With the exception of hydro-electric dams most renewable energy sources– wind, solar, run-of-the-river and tidal are all variable and yield different annual amounts of energy. The P.E.I. wind regime yields a harvest of energy that is one of the highest in Canada. From the 204MW wind turbines installed in P.E.I., around 50 per cent of the total electricity we use each year is generated by the wind. Yes, there are commercial contracts that credit and debit for “exported” wind energy but in practice only 1 to 2 per cent of this wind energy actually leaves P.E.I.
Meeting our ever-growing thirst for electricity requires compromise and optimizing local resources. For P.E.I., we have no natural energy resources other than the renewable wind and the sun. Surely Islanders would rather have a rural view of wheat growing or cattle grazing under a wind turbine or solar collectors passively harvesting energy than a sprawling nuclear power station and nothing else.
Roger King,
Hunter River
