Everything’s Bigger in Texas- Including the Wind!

Texas. The lone star state. Home of the Alamo, the huge ten-gallon cowboy hat, massive steers and huge oil wells (but we don’t like talking about them do we?!). You may already know that Texas is the nation’s largest wind power producer. But it hit a new major high in March when it produced more wind power in a given moment than ever before and greater than any other country has recorded. This was listed in a new Energy Information Administration Report. It may also have set a national record for a state’s wind power production, too. The wind farms in Texas are grouped along the Gulf Coast in the Panhandle region and also in far West Texas.

Penascal Wind Farm Kennedt ounty Texas 300x2001 Everythings Bigger in Texas  Including the Wind!
Penascal Wind Farm, Kennedt County, Texas

Texas hit “peak wind” at 8:48 p.m. on March 26, when the state’s wind farms produced a record-breaking 10,296 megawatts of electricity. At that moment, wind turbines provided enough electricity to supply power for 29 percent of the total electricity load of the state’s main power grid.

Texas’ self-contained power grid, operated by ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, supplies power to all the state’s major cities — about 85 percent of the state’s electric power customers — except El Paso, Amarillo, Lubbock and those along Texas’ eastern border.

GE wind turbine technicians on a wind turbine in Sweetwater Texas 300x1401 Everythings Bigger in Texas  Including the Wind!
GE wind turbine technicians on a wind turbine in Sweetwater, Texas

Texas leads the US states in wind capacity; more than double the next state (California). This peak is generally indicative of the increasing amount of wind capacity across the United States and the need for grid operators to manage growing volumes of wind power on their systems.

Texas has more than 12,000 megawatts of total wind power capacity. The March 26 output record beat a record set the previous week by just a few megawatt-hours. But both of those were far beyond the state’s previous wind power record set in May 2013, when output reached 9,674 megawatts. It’s no lucky one-off- look at the following diagram to see how often the wind has peaked near the current record in March:

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But there’s an odd incongruity in that Texas is not only the US’ largest wind power producer, it is also the largest producer of crude oil and the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. Renewables such as wind and solar power rank third for electric power generation in Texas behind natural gas and coal (but ahead of nuclear).

It doesn’t end here. Wind power production in Texas is expected to increase as new wind farms come online in 2014 and 2015. Within ERCOT’s region alone, more than 26,000 megawatts of potential wind power generation capacity are under construction.