Wind Power

I've always wanted a parameter named after me. So I devised the R term to convert electric power into electric energy. Of course, power does not convert directly into energy ( there is no simple multiple between watts and kilowatt-hours), but R can be a useful estimator.

The defining equation is

RP = E

where R is the conversion factor, P is power in MW, and E is electricity in millions of kWh per year. I checked some data and found for wind that R averages 2.25 with most values between 1.9 and 2.6.

So if you want to estimate the annual output of a 1MW turbine, it's about 2.25 million kWh/yr.

I also averaged some cost data for wind power and found that:

C =1.62 - 0.24*lnP

where C is cost in $/Watt and P is Power in MW. So a 2MW turbine comes in at $1.45/watt, which is not bad