Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission
project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the
state.
The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote
western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas,
Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts
of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when
air-conditioners are running.
The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to
development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable
for wind generation.
Texas is already the largest producer of wind power, with 5,300
installed megawatts — more than double the installed capacity of
California, the next closest state. And Texas is fast expanding its
capacity.
“This project will almost put Texas ahead of Germany in installed wind,”
said Greg Wortham, executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy
Consortium.
Transmission companies will pay the upfront costs of the project. They
will recoup the money from power users, at a rate of about $4 a month
for residential customers.
Details of the plan will be completed by Aug. 15, according to Damon
Withrow, director of government relations at the Public Utility
Commission, which voted 2 to 1 to go ahead with the transmission plan.
The lines will not be fully constructed until 2013.
Wind power developers reacted favorably.
“The lack of transmission has been a fundamental issue in Texas, and
it’s becoming more and more of an issue elsewhere,” said Vanessa
Kellogg, the Southwest regional development director for Horizon Wind
Energy, which operates the Lone Star Wind Farm in West Texas and has
more wind generation under development. “This is a great step in the
right direction.”
Ms. Kellogg said that the project would be a boon for Texas power
customers, whose electricity costs have risen in conjunction with
soaring natural gas prices across the state. “There’s nothing volatile
about the wind in terms of the price, because it’s free,” she said.
The Texas office of the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen
also lauded the news.
“We think it’s going to lower costs, lower pollution and create jobs. We
think that for every $3 invested, we’ll probably see about an $8
reduction in electric costs,” said Tom Smith, the state director.
The transmission problem is so acute in Texas that turbines are
sometimes shut off even when the wind is blowing.
“When the amount of generation exceeds the export capacity, you have to
start turning off wind generators” to keep things in balance, said
Hunter Armistead, head of the renewable energy division in North America
at Babcock & Brown, a large wind developer and transmission provider.
“We’ve reached that point in West Texas.”
Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas oilman
who plans to build what has been called the world’s largest wind farm in
the Texas Panhandle, welcomed the announcement.
But because about a quarter of the Pickens project capacity will come
online by 2011, two years before the Texas lines are fully ready, “we
will move forward with plans to build our own transmission,” he said.
Lack of transmission is a severe problem in a number of states that,
like Texas, want to develop their wind power resources. Wind now
accounts for 1 percent of the nation’s electricity generation but could
rise to 20 percent by 2030, according to a recent Department of Energy
report, if transmission lines are built and other challenges met.
But other states may find the Texas model difficult to emulate. The
state is unique in having its own electricity grid. All other states
fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to any transmission proposals.
The exact route of the transmission lines has yet to be determined
because the state has not yet acquired right-of-way, according to Mr.
Withrow of the utility commission.
The project will almost certainly face concerns from landowners
reluctant to have wind power transmission wires cutting across their
property. “I would anticipate that some of these companies will have to
use eminent domain,” he said, speaking of the companies that will be
building the transmission lines.
Kate Galbraith http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/business/19wind.html
Wind Power
