Following are general rule of thumb for RE projects:

1.  Utility scale wind projects:  7.5 to 10 MW per Sq. Km.

2.  Utility scale solar PV projects:  30MW per Sq. Km.

For wind projects a lot depends on terrain and size of turbine--rotor size and MW rating.

Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has selected 300 MW of wind power in a reverse auction with an average price of C$0.0859/kWh.  In 2009 the wind feed-in tariff was C$0.135, which was lowered to C$0.115.  

In the same auction IESO bought 140 MW of solar power for C$0.1567/kWh.

For details see http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1386944/ontario-wind-auction-pus...

One of the oldest wind farms in US, Altamont pass wind project, is being partly repowered and partly decommissioned.  It has 828 Kenetech 100kW turbines with lattice towers, something unimaginable today.  The project was controversial because of the number of raptor kills, which is primarily due to the wind farm's location on major migratory route of raptors.  Mitigation measures like curtailment during November to February, the high season for birds, were in place.  A few turbines were the source of majority of the bird kills, in addition to the high density of the 100kW turbines.

A repowering plan has been proposed which replaces 828 turbines with 27 turbines with rated capacity of 2.1MW.

For more details see this source.

The following is useful data about wind energy in US in 2015:

• Iowa is the first state to reach the 30% milestone; it generates 31.3% of total in-state energy from wind
• Other states that generate more than 20% of energy from wind are: Kansas and South Dakota
• Wind energy contributed 4.7% to the total electricity generation in US in 2015, while solar was at 0.94%
• 8.6 GW of wind power was installed in US, which was the largest source of generation capacity ahead of Solar (7.3 GW) and natural gas (6 GW)
• Electricity rates in US ar 5.5% lower compared to 2009
• US power sector emissions fell to the lowest level since 1995
• At 7.1 cents per kWh, the retail price of electricity to the industrial sector in US is the lowest compared to major economies like Germany, China and India.
• Wind power supports 73,000 jobs across US

The following graphic illustrates the percentages, http://www.windpowerengineering.com/featured/business-news-projects/u-s-... 

A very interesting fact was published today by GWEC regarding wind energy production in 2015:

• US produced 190 million MWh from 74.5 GW of wind power installations
• China produced 185.1 million MWh from 145.1 GW of wind power installations
• Germany produced 84.6 million MWh from 44.95 GW of wind power installations.

This implies that the effective capacity factor of Chinese wind farms is about half of US wind farms.  This can be attributed to a) better transmission infrastructure in US while China faces shortage of transmission from wind producing areas to load centers, and b) higher productivity due to higher wind speed and focus on bottom line in the US.

Comments:

Additional information from WindPower Monthly--As of December 2015, in China 14.8 GW of wind was not connected to the grid. The article also mentions that China has 20% exposure to curtailment.

Wind energy costs for 2015 are compared to 2014 costs in WindPower Monthly.  It also compares with costs of nuclear and fossil-fuel based generation.  Following is a tabular representation of the low and median costs for onshore and offshore.

TIC: Total Installed Cost

O&M: Operations and maintenance cost

GC: Generation cost (assuming it is same as levelized cost of energy

No data is available for the empty cells

I always enjoy this graphic from David Millborrow's article, it encapsulates total installed cost and capacity factor (wind speed):

The following report from AWEA reveals high penetration of wind energy into the grid--from high of 66.4% in Colorado to above 40% in ERCOT and SPP.  These are all records set in terms of wind production and wind penetration.  This is notable because it shows that the US grid is able to safely and reliably handle large amount of wind energy. This text is taken from the AWEA blog:

• The day after ERCOT’s record, the Midwest grid operator (MISO) hit a peak wind generation of 13,084 MW, surpassing its previous peak of 12,720 MWon January 28.
• The same day, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) also set its record for wind penetration at 43.9 percent on February 19. This was SPP’s third record this month. Two days prior, on Feb 17, SPP set a new wind generation peak of10,439 MW, breaking into the 10 GW of instantaneous output club, and reached a wind penetration of 43.3 percent.
• On February 18, MISO, ERCOT and SPP simultaneously reached wind outputs above 10 GW.
• MISO, ERCOT, and SPP all sustained high levels of wind for the entire day on February 19. MISO and ERCOT both sustained average hourly wind output above 11 GW all day, while SPP stayed above 8,400 MW all day. Combined, these three grid operators stayed above 30 GW all day.

Also see a previous blog about record wind energy production: http://i-windenergy.com/content/records-set-wind-production-usa-2015 

According to the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report, Goldwind jumped from fourth spot in 2014 to top spot in 2015 with 7.8 GW of onshore wind turbines.  In 2015, Vestas was at number 2 spot with slightly over 7 GW of WTGs and GE was at the third spot with 5.9 GW.  The holders of positions 7 and 10 are also Chinese manufacturers.  The backdrop is 29 GW of wind power was installed in China in 2015.

In the offshore market, Siemens was the top producer with 2.6 GW in 2015.

In the US market in 2015, 8.6 GW of new wind capacity was added out of which GE dominated by supplying 4.8 GW, followed by Vestas with 3.1 GW.  

For more details see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-22/china-s-goldwind-knock..., and https://cleantechnica.com/2016/02/23/chinese-wind-firm-tops-annual-wind-....

Accuracy of anemometers plays an important role in wind resource assessment, specifically in the uncertainty associated with the energy calculations.  Higher accuracy anemometers should therefore be preferred for measurement.  The additional cost is usually worth the investment.  Getting a little technical, the P75 and P90 energy estimates will be higher if you use higher accuracy anemometers, which means higher likelihood of getting a project financed.

Accuracy of anemometers is measured in wind tunnels using IEC 61400-12-1 standards.  There are three classes of terrain: 

- Class A: Flat terrain

- Class B: Complex terrain--mountainous terrain

- Class S: Special terrain--peculiar terrain that does not fit A or B

The classification of an anemometer is stated in terms of 3 numbers, for instance:  Class 0.9A, Class 3.0B and Class 0.5S.  In this example, the anemometer has a maximum deviation of +/- 0.9% in measurement error in flat terrain, +/-3% in complex terrain and +/-0.5% in special terrain.

Here is a comparison of the popular anemometers in the market:

1. Thies first class advanced:        Class 0.9A, Class 3.0B and Class 0.5S
2. Risoe Windsensor P2546-OPR: Class 1.32A, Class 3.71B
3. Thies first class:                           Class 1.5A, Class 2.9B
4. Vector L100:                                 Class 1.8A, Class 4.5B
5. RNRG Class 1:                              Class 1.01A, Class 8.44B
6. Vaisala WAA151:                          Class 1.7A, Class 11.1B
7. RNRG 40C:                                    Class 2.4A, Class 7.7B

For more details see Wind Energy Engineering,  Ammonit website and NRG Systems website.

Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) is reporting that 63GW of new wind capacity was installed in 2015 for a total worldwide wind power install capacity of 432.4GW.  The annual market growth in 2015 was 22%.

China added 30.5GW in 2015 for a total install base of 145.1GW and US added 8.6GW in 2015 for a total install base of 74.47GW.

Offshore wind saw 3.39GW of capacity addition for a total of 12.1GW, with Germany taking the lion share (2.28GW).

For more details see http://renewables.seenews.com/news/world-adds-63-gw-of-wind-capacity-in-... and http://gwec.net.