Why wind energy from the High Plains can’t get to other Texans and the grid

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LUBBOCK — The state’s High Plains area, which covers 41 counties in the Texas Panhandle and West Texas, is house to greater than 11,000 wind generators — the most in any space of the state.

The area may generate sufficient wind energy to energy at the very least 9 million properties. Experts say the further energy may assist present much-needed stability to the electrical grid throughout excessive energy-demand summers like this one, and even decrease the energy payments of Texans in other elements of the state.

But a good portion of the electrical energy produced in the High Plains stays there for a easy motive: It can’t be moved elsewhere. Despite the rising growth of wind energy manufacturing in Texas, the state’s transmission community would want important infrastructure upgrades to ship out the energy produced in the area.

“We’re at a moment when wind is at its peak production profile, but we see a lot of wind energy being curtailed or congested and not able to flow through to some of the higher-population areas,” mentioned John Hensley, vp for analysis and analytics at the American Clean Power Association. “Which is a loss for ratepayers and a loss for those energy consumers that now have to either face conserving energy or paying more for the energy they do use because they don’t have access to that lower-cost wind resource.”

And when the remainder of the state is requested to preserve energy to assist stabilize the grid, the High Plains has to flip off generators to restrict wind manufacturing it doesn’t want.

“Because there’s not enough transmission to move it where it’s needed, ERCOT has to throttle back the [wind] generators,” energy lawyer Michael Jewell mentioned. “They actually tell the wind generators to stop generating electricity. It gets to the point where [wind farm operators] literally have to disengage the generators entirely and stop them from doing anything.”

Texans have already had a couple of energy scares this yr amid scorching temperatures and excessive energy demand to preserve properties cool. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s electrical grid, warned about drops in energy manufacturing twice final month and asked people across the state to lower their consumption to keep away from an electrical energy emergency.

The energy provide points have hit Texans’ wallets as properly. Nearly half of Texas’ electrical energy is generated at energy vegetation that run on the state’s most dominant energy supply, pure fuel, and its worth has increased more than 200% since late February, inflicting elevated house utility payments.

Meanwhile, wind farms throughout the state account for practically 21% of the state’s energy era. Combined with wind manufacturing close to the Gulf of Mexico, Texas produced greater than one-fourth of the nation’s wind-powered electrical era final yr.

Wind energy is one of the lowest-priced energy sources as a result of it’s offered at mounted costs, generators don’t want gas to run and the federal authorities gives subsidies. Texans who get their energy from wind farms in the High Plains area normally pay much less for electrical energy than individuals in other areas of the state. But with the worth of pure fuel growing from inflation, Jewell mentioned areas the place wind energy is just not accessible have to rely upon electrical energy that prices extra.

“Other generation resources are more expensive than what [customers] would have gotten from the wind generators if they could move it,” Jewell mentioned. “That is the definition of transmission congestion. Because you can’t move the cheaper electricity through the grid.”

A 2021 ERCOT report exhibits there have been will increase in stability constraints for wind energy lately in each West and South Texas which have restricted the long-distance switch of energy.

“The transmission constraints are such that energy can’t make it to the load centers. [High Plains wind power] might be able to make it to Lubbock, but it may not be able to make it to Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston or Austin,” Jewell mentioned. “This is not an insignificant problem — it is costing Texans a lot of money.”

Some wind farms in the High Plains foresaw there could be a necessity for transmission. The Trent Wind Farm was one among the first in the area. Beginning operations in 2001, the wind farm is between Abilene and Sweetwater in West Texas and has about 100 wind generators, which may provide energy to 35,000 properties. Energy firm American Electric Power constructed the web site close to an influence transmission community and constructed a brief transmission line, so the energy generated there does go into the ERCOT system.

But Jewell mentioned excessive energy demand and prices this summer season present there’s a necessity to construct further transmission strains to transfer extra wind energy produced in the High Plains to other areas of the state.

Jewell mentioned the Public Utility Commission, which oversees the grid, is conducting checks to decide the financial advantages of including transmission strains from the High Plains to the greater than 52,000 miles of strains that already join to the grid throughout the state. As of now, nevertheless, there isn’t any official proposal to construct new strains.

“It does take a lot of time to figure it out — you’re talking about a transmission line that’s going to be in service for 40 or 50 years, and it’s going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars,” Jewell mentioned. “You want to be sure that the savings outweigh the costs, so it is a longer process. But we need more transmission in order to be able to move more energy. This state is growing by leaps and bounds.”

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers launched after the February 2021 winter storm said that Texas has substantial and rising reliability and resilience issues with its electrical system.

The report concluded that “the failures that caused overwhelming human and economic suffering during February will increase in frequency and duration due to legacy market design shortcomings, growing infrastructure interdependence, economic and population growth drivers, and aging equipment even if the frequency and severity of weather events remains unchanged.”

The report additionally said that whereas transmission upgrades throughout the state have typically been made in a well timed method, it’s been difficult to add infrastructure the place there was speedy progress, like in the High Plains.

Despite some Texas lawmakers’ vocal opposition towards wind and other types of renewable energy, the state has prime actual property for harnessing wind energy due to its open plains, and farmers can put generators on their land for monetary reduction.

This has led to a increase in wind farms, even with transmission points. Since 2010, wind energy generation in Texas has increased by 15%. This month, the Biden administration announced the Gulf of Mexico’s first offshore wind farms might be developed off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana and will produce sufficient energy to energy round 3 million properties.

“Texas really does sort of stand head and shoulders above all other states when it comes to the actual amount of wind, solar and battery storage projects that are on the system,” Hensley mentioned.

One of the points typically introduced up with wind and photo voltaic farms is that they will not be ready to produce as a lot energy as the state wants all of the time. Earlier this month, when ERCOT requested customers to preserve electrical energy, the company listed low wind generation and cloud coverage in West Texas as factors contributing to a tight energy supply.

Henlsey mentioned that is the place battery storage stations can assist. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, utility-scale batteries tripled in capability in 2021 and can now retailer up to 4.6 gigawatts of energy. Texas has been shortly creating storage tasks. In 2011, Texas had solely 5 megawatts of battery storage capability; by 2020, that had ballooned to 323.1 megawatts.

“Storage is the real game-changer because it can really help to mediate and control a lot of the intermittency issues that a lot of folks worry about when they think about wind and solar technology,” Hensley mentioned. “So being able to capture a lot of that solar that comes right around noon to [1 p.m.] and move it to those evening periods when demand is at its highest, or even move strong wind resources from overnight to the early morning or afternoon hours.”

Storage know-how can assist, however Hensley mentioned transmission remains to be the massive issue to think about.

Solar is one other useful resource that might assist stabilize the grid. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Texas has about 13,947 megawatts of photo voltaic put in and greater than 161,000 installations. That’s sufficient to energy greater than 1.6 million properties.

This month, the PUC fashioned a process power to develop a pilot program subsequent yr that will create a pathway for photo voltaic panels and batteries on small-scale methods, like properties and companies, to add that energy to the grid. The program would make photo voltaic and batteries extra accessible and inexpensive for patrons, and it will pay clients to share their saved energy to the grid as properly.

Hensley mentioned Texas has the most clean-energy tasks in the works that may possible proceed to put the area above the relaxation when it comes to wind era.

“So they’re already ahead, and it looks like they’re going to be even farther ahead six months or a year down the road,” he mentioned.

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