Managing risk with renewable resources

One approach to managing risk is for a utility company to invest in diverse power sources such as wind power plants. Since wind plants consume no fuel, can be built in relatively small increments with short construction lead times, and generate no pollutants, it is often said that they offer significant protection from risks associated with conventional fossil-fuel power plants. With assistance from Convergence Research, Charles River Associates, and the Tellus Institute, the authors tested this hypothesis by conducting an in-depth analysis of the risk implications of a decision to build a 1,600 MW wind power plant instead of a 400 MW gas-fired combined cycle plant. (The two plants were assumed to have equal firm capacity.) The case study utility was Texas Utilities Electric, a very large investor-owned company serving an area with substantial, high-quality wind resources. The uncertain inputs included fuel prices, environmental regulations (specifically, CO2 and air pollution controls), wind plant output, conventional plant availability, and load growth. Two different market scenarios were examined: traditional regulation and an unregulated wholesale market characterized either by a power pool or fixed-price contracts of varying duration. Conclusions are striking: under traditional regulation, wind energy provides a net present-value risk-reduction benefit of $3.4 to $7.8/MWh