Many countries in the world have started to tap in to the rich energy resource known as wind energy. While some of these places are just starting up their wind farms and wind energy harnessing technology, other countries have a fully formed plan to use this renewable resource to energy their homes and cities. When it comes to wind energy, Canada has one of the world's biggest and most well formed plans to use this energy.
The first use of wind energy Canada can trace back to is in the 1800's, when windmills were placed in various parts of North America in order to harness the energy created by wind. Up until the 1930's, many rural areas still used windmills to produce their electricity, but the extension of national energy grids in the US and Canada made the use of windmills in this capacity obsolete. It wasn't until the later part of the 20th century that the potential of wind energy was again discovered.
There are wind turbines and wind farms installed in most provinces of Canada at this time, with the province of British Columbia being the exception. These wind farms currently produce 1,049 MW of electricity, which is about .1% of the country's needed electricity supply (Canada estimates their needed amount of energy to be about 1,000,000 MW). Canada has some of the best potential for wind energy of any country in the world, due to the many miles of coastline and the largest prairies of any country.
The Canadian Wind Energy Association estimates that the northern part of the province of Quebec, for example, has the potential to produce 40% of Canada's energy needs. The association also estimates that the cost of producing electricity from wind energy is about six to twelve cents per KW h, which is more expensive than some other current methods of producing electricity, but that the cost of using wind energy electricity will decrease by three to five percent every year.
As energy sources in the country go, wind energy in Canada produces is far less than any other. Additionally, while the potential is great for Canada to use wind energy, the federal incentives to businesses, cities and homes to use wind for their energy is not great. Once the government gets fully on board with wind energy, it can definitely be a great source of electricity for the entire country.
