June 11th, 2010
© warrenski
The recession has been hard on the wind industry, according to Renewable Energy World. And while construction of wind turbines is in the news on a regular basis, the industry's biggest problem is at the other end of the pipeline. The recession has lowered demand for electricity and utility companies aren't interested in buying the power wind turbines generate at the moment.
Lower demand for electricity impacts the wind industry especially hard because utilities companies buy electricity from wind farms as a way of satisfying increased customer demand. When demand doesn't increase, utilities don't need wind energy – and usually aren't obligated by state or federal energy policy to buy it.
It doesn't help the wind energy's situation that natural gas prices have fallen by 65% in the past two years.