There is a diary today about the UK wind proposal. OK, my biases up front:
First, I hate wind from an engineering basis. Yes, wind can be pretty constant. But when you manage a grid to the point of variations in the three to four cycle time period necessary for digital controls (remember power is 60 cycles per second), you are talking about variations in the 1/20th of a second. Wind ain't that constant.
Two, point of use renewables have a 30% efficiency advantage - that is roughly about how much power loss there is from the generator to the consumer.
So why is wind so popular - its the money. Explanation below the fold
The place to start is how do utilities make money? The answer is not "by selling electricity". The answer is "by making investments" All of the money spent on wages, office supplies, etc. are expenses. Expenses in a utility rate case are a straight pass through - no profit. All profit comes from the return allowed on investment.
Therefore, really big megaprojects are really good business for a utility. Why is customer point of purchase renewable a really bad idea - because the utility may not even own it. OOOhhhh, bad, very bad.
Now why did utilities sell all their power plants in the mid 1990s? because all investments depreciate (reduce the value of the investment when it is paid back). So selling them revalued the assets. Also, any asset owned by the utility isn't available to trade for profit. In the booming markets of the 90s, having power to trade was a good thing. Since a lot of plants were built since then, trading power is much riskier. Owning the asset and getting the regulator to guarantee your opportunity to make a return is now a good thing.
So, the money says Build really big things that you can get the regulators to give you a nice return on. And if you build really big generators you need to build a really big grid - OOOOHHHH double goody.
If you build point of use generation, you build almost 1/3 less and the grid is used even less, so no new grid - BBBAAAADDD.
Follow the money when you find you have bedfellows that you swore were more likely to stab you than pat you. Maybe it's because you just become the key to the vault.