Three years ago, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) rebutted arguments. Those were that occurrences of negative prices at nuclear plants in Illinois were frequently caused by wind energy. That “compelling” data led FERC Commissioner John Norris, who had previously discussed his concerns about negative prices. So they had to affirm that “the focus on negative prices is a distraction.”

More recently, we have documented that many instances of negative prices are caused by conventional power plants.

Retire Old Power Plants

AWEA has now made our prior analysis far more comprehensive. That’s by examining full-year 2016 price data for all retiring power plants. All in the main wholesale electricity markets that have a large amount of wind generation: PJM, MISO, SPP, and ERCOT.

The results, which we are releasing today for the first time, confirm that any instances of renewable policies like the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and state renewable standard credits being factored into market prices have a trivial impact on retiring power plants.

1.8 Million Data Points

Across more than 1.8 million data points, which cover all 2016 pricing intervals in the day-ahead electricity market for all retiring power plants in those regions. So only 55 instances of negative prices were found that could have been set by a wind project receiving the PTC. The analysis includes market price data for all power plants that have retired since 2012. In addition or have announced plans to retire.

Our analysis focused on the day-ahead electricity market (the results bolded below). That’s as that is where nuclear and coal generators sell most. I mean if not all of their generation. However, the results show that wind plants almost never set prices for an additional 2.4 million data points in the real-time electricity market as well. For more background on electricity markets and how prices are set, see the last section of this post.

Power Plants Wholesale Markets

In PJM and MISO, which account for a large share of all power plants in wholesale markets that are retiring nationwide. So only 0.003 percent of day-ahead market prices at retiring power plants were in a range that could be set by a wind project receiving the PTC. For that’s shown on the left side of the table.

Occurrences of negative prices that could be wind-related were even less frequent in SPP. So that’s at 0.0017 percent of day-ahead market price intervals. Those occurrences were slightly more common at retiring plants in ERCOT. For at 0.06 percent of price intervals. However, it should be noted that there is only one retiring coal power plant in ERCOT.

Also Day-Ahead Market prices at retiring power plants would increase by an average of $0.0007. I mean or 1/13th of a penny per megawatt hour (MWh). So if operating wind projects no longer received the PTC. Retiring power plants in SPP saw an even smaller impact at 1/25th of a penny. All the while the one retiring coal power plant in ERCOT saw an impact of around one penny per MWh.

It is important to clarify that the PTC does directly reduce consumer electricity costs.

Especially outside of the electricity market. The PTC and other incentives allow wind projects to offer lower long-term contract prices to customers and the utilities who serve them. All which translates into lower electric bills for consumers on a 1:1 basis.

However, those contract payments are outside of the wholesale electricity market. So they are not directly factored into the wholesale electricity market prices received by other generators.

The facts about energy incentives

In reality, the wind PTC has been a remarkable success. Especially in driving the American innovation and efficiency that have driven a two-third reduction in the cost of wind energy since 2009. The more than 102,500 Americans working in the wind industry today. More are creating a new industry with a bright future. Thereby bringing tens of billions of dollars in investment to rural areas. Finally and tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs to America. Production-based incentives like the PTC have driven efficiency increases. Those that make U.S. wind projects some of the most productive in the world.

Regardless, Congress voted in December 2015 to phase down the wind PTC. So we are now in year three of that five-year phasedown period.

Wind only gets 3% of Incentives

Despite the recent focus on incentives for renewables, cumulatively wind energy has received only 3 percent of federal energy incentives. That’s versus 86 percent for fossil and nuclear sources. All according to the Nuclear Energy Institute and other experts. Given that the wind industry’s “tax reform” is already in place with the PTC phasedown legislation, we would welcome a comprehensive look at all forms of subsidies for all electricity sources.

Market dynamics are driving retirements

Market dynamics are benefiting consumers by driving retirement of older, less efficient resources in favor of more efficient resources. A wide range of experts agree that the primary factors driving power plant retirements and economic challenges for generators of all types are cheap natural gas and flat electricity demand.

Department of Energy Data

The following map, compiled from Department of Energy data, shows that most retiring coal and nuclear plants are in regions that have little to no renewable generation, confirming that renewable energy or pro-renewable policies cannot be the primary factor driving those retirements.

Rather, the primary factor driving power plant retirements appears to be low-cost shale gas production undercutting relatively high-cost Appalachian and Illinois Basin coal in the Eastern U.S., as shown below. In the regions shaded red in the map, the fuel cost of producing electricity from natural gas is significantly lower than the fuel cost of coal power plants, explaining why utilities in those regions are moving from coal to natural gas generation.