With the production tax credit, wind energy is less expensive than the avoided fuel costs for natural gas and diesel generators today. There are companies today which are able to forecast the hourly average energy output of a wind farm up to 48-hours in advance with an accuracy of plus or minus 40 percent. These forecasts may improve the capacity credit for a wind farm. Wind hybrid solutions have system benefits of providing a higher percentage of power on-demand and therefore have a higher capacity credit, but are much more expensive than wind alone. The viability of residential-scale wind hybrid systems is dependent on the location of the facility being near good wind resources.
Wind energy is more abundant in the northwest portion of the state.
Solar energy is higher in the southwest and central part of the state. The opportunity for hydro is better in the central and eastern parts of the state. On the residential scale, if storage is required, a deep cycle lead-acid battery bank is still the most cost effective solution. At times when the load is enough to absorb all energy being produced, the only losses are inverter and line losses. When using a backup generator, the cost, at the current time, is much lower using gasoline or diesel fuel rather than a biofuel.