Those EIA numbers are average costs of new generation without any tax subsidies. They might actually be a bit on the higher end because the average for wind figures in both onshore and the more expensive offshore (probably goes without saying but we don’t have offshore wind development in Wyoming).
BTW - the cost of wind generation in areas with strong wind resource is hardly surprising. Studies from the early 90s indicated that wind would probably become the cheapest energy source (long before it became the rage to decrease carbon emissions). Way back when I was in school late 90s/early 00s, wind was quickly moving up and was more cost effective then than natural gas but coal was king in terms of cost. Back then, we were tasked in school with designing coal fired co-generation plants to maximize energy costs. Unfortunately, we haven’t really developed too much in the way of making removing coal from the ground cheaper and meeting NOX and SOX clean air act emission requirements. Since then, we have unlocked massive natural gas resources with shale drilling and it has easily surpassed coal in terms of price. Ironically, we probably wouldn’t have much of a coal industry in Wyoming if it weren’t for the clean air act and original emission reduction requirements. It was Wyoming’s Powder River Basin relatively low sulfur coal that made investment here attractive. Some of the current literature and projections on nuclear are now mirroring the early 90s wind projections. Nuclear seems like the wise investment to me in the future and doesn’t have the big land footprint of wind. But, with technology, it’s always a guessing game.
