Texas Sets Wind Power Record As Wind Farms Grow

Texas set a new record for wind power output earlier this month, due to the growth of wind farms along its Gulf of Mexico coastline, according to a recent Reuters article. As a result, wind power is becoming a more significant source of energy for the state, the article notes.

The amount of electricity produced from wind on the afternoon of October 7 set a record at 7,400 megawatts, more than 78 percent of the 9,400 MW of installed wind capacity in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). That’s well above the 30 to 40 percent of nameplate electric capacity that wind farms typically produce.

Texas is already a national leader in carbon-free electric capacity from wind turbines, but most of the state’s farms have been located in West Texas, and are most effective during the evening and during the spring and fall months when power demand is low.

In contrast, recent wind farm additions in the state, now totaling more than 1,200 megawatts, have been built closer to the coast, south of the city of Corpus Christi, where wind patterns differ from those experienced inland.

About 15 percent of the record-setting energy production on October 7^th came from the coastal wind farms, the article said.

The October 7^th record breaks the previous record, set on June 19^th of this year, when 7,355 megawatts of power were generated from the state’s wind turbines.

ERCOT expects to have 9,700 megawatts of wind generation up and running by the end of the year, according to the article.

Wind farms expanded rapidly in Texas until 2009 when wind capacity began to overwhelm the existing transmission capacity available to move the power from remote areas of West Texas to large cities - such as Dallas and San Antonio - that consume the power. As a result, several wind projects were canceled, but development of an additional 1,500 megawatts is still in progress for 2012, the article said. An additional 34,000 megawatts of wind power capacity is potentially in the planning stages.

The state of Texas is constructing more than 2,300 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, part of a $6.5 billion plan to expand its power grid by late 2013, in order to accommodate the wind power growth.

Chris Timmerman
Contributing Writer
Green Education Services
www.greenedu.com