Wind: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Wind is a free flow whose value depends on the cost of turbines, towers and grid links that capture it, the wind speed at a site, and the power prices it competes with, often set by gas or coal plants.
No public price Wind has no public monthly price series: A free natural flow; no market price, only capture costs.What its price moves with
Onshore turbines capture most wind energy used today, so their installed cost sets what wind at a given site is worth. Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have India's best onshore sites, where higher wind speeds cut the cost per unit.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Offshore turbines reach stronger and steadier winds at sea but cost more to build and connect. The value of offshore wind depends on vessel, foundation and cable costs as well as the wind itself.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Towers, nacelles and foundations are mostly steel, so steel prices feed straight into the cost of a new wind farm. Steel price spikes have pushed turbine makers to raise prices and renegotiate contracts.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Generators, cables and grid connections use a lot of copper, and wind farms use more per megawatt than gas plants. Copper prices therefore affect the cost of capturing wind and moving its power to users.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Many direct-drive and offshore turbines use permanent magnets made with neodymium and dysprosium. Chinese control of rare earth supply makes magnet costs and export rules a risk for wind projects.
No public price for rare earths, so the link is explained in words only.Gas plants often set the power price that wind output earns. When gas prices rise, wind saves more fuel per unit, and wind output on windy days pushes gas plants off the system.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.