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Texas To Build $4.93B Wind-Power Project
Hugh Pickens points out a story in the NYTimes about Texas' $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project. One of the major goals of the project is to improve electrical throughput to the population centers. Current transmission lines are unable to handle all of the power generated by Texas' wind fields. State citizens will be paying slightly more to help cover the cost, though the project is expected to eventually lower the cost to consumers. Quoting:
"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. 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.'"
Or they could have radio controlled shutoff switches on more air conditioners. I have one on mine, and it's great. I pay less for my power, and it only gets shut off at a time like that - there is a contractual arrangement about how often it can be shut off, and it isn't often.
There are a lot of ways that the program could be expanded, not least making it a bigger difference in the amount one pays for power - more people would sign up, the ones who didn't would pick up the cost.
If you gather solar energy that would have missed earth, and send it to earth; aren't you increasing global warming?
While I am all in favor of more wind power, here's something to keep in mind: this spring the Texas control area (the organization that manages power flows in the Texas region) had an incident where the temperature stayed warm into the evening and the weather conditions were such that the wind died across the entire state. Of course the wind turbine power went to zero across the entire state as well, driving the system into yellow (risk of blackout/system collapse) and close to red before they could get enough backup gas turbines on-line.
As I said, wind is great but it needs to be backed up with hydro and probably nuclear to have a reliable system.
sPh
That's probably where the transmission line truly manifested itself. I live in West Texas, and see no less than at least three wind ranches between my house and work.
I've seen almost half an entire field of the generators shut down when the wind is blowing.
Better transmission would avoid the risk of brownouts, because, believe me, there's enough power to be made out here:)
The cost of power fluctuates a lot from minute to minute, but the consumer rarely sees this. I would love to see the current cost of electricity transmitted with the power and consumer-grade adaptors that would cut off power when it went above a certain cost. For example, I could run my washing machine or dishwasher only when power is cheapest.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Insulation?
Well, I wasn't able to come up with the number of "Houses" in Texas, but in 2006 they had a population of 23.5 Million people. So lets say there's 8M Houses. That would 612$ per house for insulation. Assuming that's the issue to begin with. But it's not.
Texas has a history of being an energy exporter, mainly oil. If you read the article, you'll see that the problem isn't generating power to meet their needs. It's getting power to where it needs to go. That would include selling it to other states in the US that have been dragging their feet on allowing businesses to build their own wind farms.
Texas may not be prime real estate when it comes to wind power generation, but they sure have a lot of it. Having the Government build up the infrastructure to those places will have the power companies leaping to put up wind farms there.
Using Government power to help create business. Instead of taxing, regulating, and feeing them to death. There's a reason Texas tends to have the highest job growth in the US.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I live in Dallas TX. On 07/06/2008 the Dallas Morning News had a great article on "Debate Flares Over Wind Power" by Elizabeth Souder. The text edition. The critical part is wind in Texas is always fickle. The incident referred to by the original poster occurred in February 2008. Lets look at the DMN chart. 3:15AM wind blows strong; lowest demand for the day, price per megawatt 41.96. Then during the hottest time of the day 3:15PM; wind generates the least amount for the day, price per megawatt 109.80.
Below is quoted from the DMN article.
WHERE THE POWER COMES FROM IN TEXAS
1. WIND Wind turbines almost always go [online] first. While operating the turbines can be costly, the wind is free and operators bid low to ensure they can sell as much electricity as possible.
2. NUCLEAR Nuclear plants are the second cheapest source of power and tend to operate constantly throughout the year.
3. COAL Coals plants to third and also tend to operate constantly. Nuclear and coal plants are known as BASE LOAD GENERATORS.
4. HYDRO/OTHER/DC ties. Texas has a tiny amount of hydro-generated power. Some of the state's power comes from other types of plants such as solar panels. And some power comes through so-called DC ties, or power lines that bring electricity from outside the ERCOT territory.
5. NATURAL GAS The remaining supply is filled in by natural gas plants. That can drive up electricity prices because natural gas is costly. The newest, most efficient plants turn on first followed by older plants that are much more costly to operate. Some of these plants, called peaker plants only operate a few hours each year to fill in supply when demand surges.
6. MARKET RATE. THE LAST PLANT TO TURN ON SETS THE PRICE FOR THE ENTIRE MARKET. SO EVEN IF A WIND OPERATOR BIDS LOW, THAT OPERATOR'S PRICE RISES THROUGHOUT THE DAY AS PLANTS WITH HIGHER PRICED BIDS TURN ON.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/energy/stories/DN-wind_06bus.ART0.State.Edition1.4e033eb.html
Thanks,
Jim