[98] The rate was later raised to 15 percent by the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Act of 1980, which extended the credit to December 31, 1985, when it was allowed to lapse for wind.

[99] Dollars are expressed in year 2003 values, except as otherwise noted.

[100] See IRS Form 8835, “Renewable Electricity Production Credit,” for the year 2003, web site www.irs.gov/ pub/irs-pdf/f8835.pdf.

[101] Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy, web site www.dsire.org (September 22, 2003). Note: 425 megawatts, the original mandated term in 1994, has been extended to 825 megawatts in 2006 and 1,125 megawatts in 2010.

[102]“Tax Relief Extension Act of 1999,” Public Law 106-170.

[103] The American Wind Energy Association estimates 1,697 megawatts of installations of all sizes in 2001 (see web site www.awea.org/faq/ instcap.html).

[104]“Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002,” Public Law 107-147.

[105] The American Wind Energy Association estimates 1,689 megawatts net capacity growth in 2003 (see web site www.awea.org/faq/instcap.html).

[106] Wind power facilities also receive a 5-year accelerated depreciation allowance on Federal income tax.

[107] For further discussion of cost and performance improvements, see C. Namovicz, “Modeling Wind and Intermittent Generation in the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS),” in American Wind Energy Association, WindPower 2003 Conference Proceedings (2003).

[108] Cost includes “busbar” costs plus transmission interconnection charge, but does not include additional grid services that may be required to facilitate integration of wind power. Excellent wind resources refer to sites in wind power Class 6 or better, defined by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory as a site with an annual average wind speed at 50 meter hub height of 8.0 meters per second (17.9 miles per hour) or higher. See D.L. Elliot et al., Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States (Pacific Northwest Laboratory, March 1987), p. 3.

[109] Note that the levelized cost of both natural gas and coal plants depends on expected utilization rates. For comparison purposes, an 85-percent utilization rate is assumed for coal and 87 percent for combined cycle. Effective utilization rates (capacity factors) for current-technology wind plants range from 33 to 40 percent, depending on quality of the wind resource. The 40-percent capacity factor corresponds to the lowest levelized wind cost.

[110] Claiming the PTC precludes these facilities from claiming the 10-percent investment tax credit also available to geothermal and solar plants. Also, the tax credit applies only to generation sold to a non-related party, and thus would not be available to facilities using photovoltaics or other “distributed generation” technology to provide on-site power.

[111] For example, leading Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas announced in early 2003 plans to build a significant factory in Oregon, but uncertainty over PTC extension was cited as the primary reason for delaying or curtailing the plan. See B. Jacklet, Portland Tribune (June 13, 2003), web site www.portlandtribune.com/ archview.cgi?id=18698.