The Wind Power Production Incentive, or WPPI, was a program of the Canadian Government that promoted the generation of electricity from wind power in Canada to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that would otherwise enter the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The government paid about half the excess cost of producing electricity from wind, compared to conventional sources, for the first 10 years of a project. The Canadian WPPI Program started in 2002 and ended on 31 March, 2007 after a change of government. A different program partly replaced it.
A wind farm costs about the same to build per watt of nameplate capacity as a coal-fired power station of similar rating, but the economies of scale are fewer for a wind farm due to the lower quantity of power produced over the life of a station. Depending on location, wind farms may produce nearly full power output only about 28% of the time, whereas a base-loaded coal-fired station runs at full output more than 85% of the time. The WPPI provided a direct subsidy per kilowatthour of wind energy produced, from 1.2 cents down to 0.8 cents depending on the startup date of a project. Measures were taken to distribute the incentive across the country. The total estimated cost of the program was (CDN) $260 million.
An internal audit in 2006 observed that capacity factors were overestimated by applicants, so less capacity was actually supplied than intended.
Famous quotes containing the words wind, power, production and/or incentive:
“Once in this wine the summer blood
Knocked in the flesh that decked the vine,
Once in this bread
The oat was merry in the wind;
Man broke the sun, pulled the wind down.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Knowing does not always allow us to prevent, but at least the things that we know, we hold them, if not in our hands, but at least in our thoughts where we may dispose of them at our whim, which gives us the illusion of power over them.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)