Texas, the US’s wind-power leader, set a new record for wind generation. About 19 percent of the electricity on the state’s main grid was supplied by turbines.
The 6,272-megawatt peak — which does not include turbines in the windy Panhandle because that region is on a different grid — surpassed another record, set last Sunday near midday. The state’s overall wind average is significantly lower than these spikes: Last year Texas got 6.2 percent of its electricity from wind, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the grid serving most of the state. The nation as a whole has less than 2 percent wind in its electricity mix.
Texas’s progress in installing turbines is testing the bounds of just how much wind the electrical grid can handle. Some turbines are slowed or shut down on windy days because the state does not have sufficient transmission wires to move all the power from the remote, windy areas of West Texas to cities like Dallas and Houston that need it. Last night and this morning, for example, the prices for wind generation offered on the main Texas grid actually fell below zero, a sign of oversupply that usually prompts wind generators to shut down their turbines.
Meanwhile, the state is able to break new wind records partly because of the growth of wind in areas with sufficient transmission. A 180-megawatt wind farm opened last September near Corpus Christi. NextEra Energy Resources, a major wind developer, also recently completed a private transmission line for its enormous wind farm in West Texas.
– from nytimes.com