Texas is a large state with an even larger problem to deal with. It is experiencing a burgeoning wind power industry with enormous capacity, relatively speaking. The problem is their transmission lines are unable to transfer any more than half of it. This dilemma has challenged any significant realization from the Texas green Smart Grid technology, how are they going to move the valuable renewable green and clean power from the generating facilities to where the demand is greatest.
Texas has moved to the front of the line in wind turbine power generation in the US with better than eighty five hundred Megawatts of wind energy capacity, for the most part from the West Texas wind installations. However, the state’s grid transmission system for current can only handle about forty five hundred MWs. There is too much green wind energy going nowhere.
This is the type of headache that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas or [ERCOT] could certainly do without. Council executives released a statement saying that the growth of wind power capacity was formidable: going from twenty eight hundred MWs in 2006 to existing levels of capacity today. They stated the power growth was due to the state policy that remunerates environmentally conscious corporations. In addition, the state’s energy industry was deregulated in 1999 and this sprang the doors open to more competition and companies investing in power generation.
ERCOT controls energy for approximately twenty two million consumers throughout Texas, about eighty five percent of the state’s electricity current. ERCOT being the largest grid manager, it has opted to supervise construction of a new high energy transmission cable system, an expensive venture costing nearly five billion dollars. ERCOT believes the updated power transmission infrastructure, hopefully with private enterprise assistance, will be in full operation mode by 2013.
What has Texas regulators and other concerned parties in a knot is the long term expansion of the transmission system is a project that is at odds with the state’s rapidly expanding citizenry.
The majority of that hefty West Texas wind potential does not remain in West Texas. It is transported to destinations such as Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio o clear on the other end of the state. The Dallas metro region is currently the fastest growing population center in the area. In general, the Texas population has been increasing twofold faster than the US average in the last few years.
These are not the only issues of concern to ERCOT, state regulators and the other troubled parties must work out. The integration of still more wind turbine power into the power grid will need to find an equilibrium with other sources of power, for instance coal fired facilities, and find a way for the Smart Grid technology to deal with the erratic and inconsistent wind energy current outputs.
Texas is doing fine for energy resources just now; however, there will be a huge need in the future. Everything really does happen bigger in Texas!
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