Skull Pilot
Diamond Member
- Nov 17, 2007
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Well now, here is where wind has not failed, and is being increased as we post. And those ultra-Liberal Texans are adding solar by the gigawatt as we post. LOL
The Great Texas Wind Power Boom
The Roscoe Wind Farm in Roscoe, Texas, owned/operated by E.ON Climate & Renewables is one of the world's largest wind farms. It has 634 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 782 MW. Source: Recharge News
It was a predictable result, and one that confirms a widely held misconception on Green Energy leadership. My Google search just yielded: "wind power California"...7.3 million responses...."wind power Texas"...5.6 million responses.
But, you should know that Texas produces about four times more wind power than 3rd place California and three times more than 2nd place Iowa. Pretty amazing for Texas, an energy juggernaut that also supplies about 28% of our natural gas and 37% of our crude oil. Texas has surged its wind power capacity 80% to 18,000 megawatts since 2010, with actual wind generation more than doubling over that time.
There are more than 10,000 wind turbines in Texas, and at times last winter, wind supplied 40-50% of the state’s electricity. The Great Texas Wind Boom has all come without much help from legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who backed out of his grandiose wind plans in the state.
Texas now produces more wind power alone than 25 U.S. states produce from all power sources combined!
Although you can read "6 Reasons Why Texas Leads the Nation in Wind Power" for yourself, one advantage for Texas is that it's the only U.S. state with its own power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which covers about 75% of the state.
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"Building wind farms is easy. Transmission lines are tough."
Yet, more large-scale transmission projects are critical for more wind because the best wind locations are generally remote from the high consuming cities. Take Texas, which spans a whopping 820 miles across and where the western half of the state is the wind haven: Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas are all in the eastern half.
Texas though wisely has a very diversified power portfolio that maintains critical reliability as more and more wind is added. A massive local supply of natural gas, for instance, can help backup Texas wind power when the wind isn't blowing. Gas peaker plants stand ready to be immediate backup power that can go from stop to full power in 10 minutes and shutdown when the wind starts blowing again.
Gas accounts for over 60% of Texas's power capacity, but has generated about 50% of the state's power. To also help flexibility, The Brattle Group advises Texas policymakers to establish "a regulatory framework that will allow the state to capture the full value of deploying grid-integrated electricity storage."
Amazon and Johnson & Johnson are two of a growing number of companies getting involved with wind power in Texas. Amazon wants to build a wind farm that will yield a million megawatt hours of electricity a year, enough to power 90,000 homes (here). For many, Texas is a model for the rest of the country. The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2015 report “Wind Vision” set a goal of getting 35% of all electricity in the country from wind in 2050, up from about 5% today.
Once again you refuse to look at real performance and not just installed nominal capacity
Multiply all your number by at least 4 if not 6 to get the cost of the actual output to match the rated capacity then don't forget to replace your windmills every 20 years or less