A sensible strategy for renewable electrical energy in North America

Increased development and responsible production of the continent’s energy resources within competitive markets, along with free trade in energy with the rest of the world, would generate extensive employment, labour income, and the benefits of economic growth and, thereby, contribute to improvements in the quality of life of North Americans. [...] In Canada, the United States, and Mexico, the main outcome of this attention on renewable energy sources of electricity has been the setting of targets for increasing the share of renewable energy sources used to generate electric power. [...] Wind-energy generation capacity is expected to increase the most among the renewable-energy technologies and accounts for 63% of the projected increase in renewable-energy source capacity and 51% of the increase in total North American generation from 2010 to 2020. [...] The section examines two metrics that help in understanding of both the costs of electric generation to the producer and the prices of electricity faced by the end-users or consumers. [...] The first is the level- ized cost of electricity (LCOE), which estimates the price at which the producer must generate (and thus, sell) its output in order to recover the costs of the investment over the economic life of the type of power plant in question.