Commercial Wind Power

On this page, we’ll discuss Commercial Wind Power, one of the 5 action areas identified in the Road to Resilience: Energy Solutions.

Wind power is an intermittent source of renewable energy that only provides power when the wind blows. Wind power is very clean. After installation, it generates virtually no greenhouse gases or other pollution.

Wind power is becoming more common as costs continue to fall below costs for natural gas or coal power plants. Wind turbine technology continues to improve, with larger and taller turbines able to capture more wind energy per unit.

Manitoba has a significant potential for generating wind power. Manitoba has two commercial wind farms already, at St. Leon (120 MW) and St. Joseph (138 MW), with 133 turbines total. For comparison, Ontario has 94 wind farms with 2,681 turbines and total capacity of 5,436 MW. Adding wind energy will diversify Manitoba’s grid and reduce the risks of climate change.

Technical Analysis

Details and Assumptions

1. Proposed amount of total installed wind power is 2 700 MW, from 833 additional wind turbines. The amount of land required is approximately 1 920 acres.
2. Total annual energy generation is 11 970 GWh.
3. A firm capacity factor at 20% of installed capacity has been assumed.

ENERGY SOLUTIONS