Texas wind power sets new record

Fuel Fix:

Texas wind set a new record last week.

At 12:07 am Friday, wind power generated 19,168 megawatts of electricity for a brief moment, beating the previous record of 17,920 megawatts, recorded at 3:32 p.m. on Nov. 12, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's primary electric grid operator.

A megawatt of electricity can power 200 Texas homes on a hot summer day.

More than 22,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity are installed in ERCOT's region, which includes about 90 percent of the state's electric load. West Texas generates over half of that. In total, ERCOT has nearly 80,000 megawatts of installed capacity among all types of power generators.

Wind capacity has grown rapidly in Texas over the past decade, tripling from 2008 to 2018.

System-wide prices in the wholesale market tend to be lower when more wind generation is being produced since renewable resources do not incur fuel costs when producing electricity. In 2018, ERCOT added intra-hour wind forecasting to better prepare the grid for huge gusts or lulls in five-minute intervals. This reduces the amount of reserves needed to ensure reliability.
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The pricing of wind power generated is somewhat misleading because of the huge subsidies and tax breaks afforded alternative energy projects.  Because wind power can not scale up or down to meet demand it is a limited source of energy that supplements more traditional forms of energy production.