The wind blows less when wind power is needed most

Star-Telegram (DFW) ^ | 8-5-08 | JIM FUQUAY

[engrpat]

As North Texans sweltered through another 100-degree-plus day, the windmills around Sweetwater turned lazily in the West Texas breeze, generating enough electricity to power about 250,000 homes.

It’s not much — barely 1 percent of the peak electricity demand Monday for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operator of the transmission grid for about 75 percent of the state. But it’s about what is expected from the state’s wind-power industry, by far the nation’s largest, during the dog days of summer, when temperatures climb but wind speeds dip on the West Texas plains.

"In general, wind’s peak energy does not coincide with peak electricity demand. It’s not a good match," said Andy Swift, director of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

That’s not to say wind power isn’t needed, he quickly added.

"It’s something we as a state and a nation need to say focused on," Swift said.

When it comes to electricity, Texas uses more than any other state. Monday’s peak demand of more than 62,000 megawatts easily outstrips California’s record of about 53,000 megawatts.

And the state generates more wind power than any other. Greg Wortham of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium in Sweetwater, said about 6,000 megawatts of wind-power capacity is installed statewide, more than double No. 2 California.

The problem is, the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so wind power fluctuates hour to hour and day to day. According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Texas’ windmills churn out about 38 percent of their capacity on average during the year. That’s still the best in the nation, just ahead of the Great Plains at 37 percent and well ahead of the Upper Midwest, the weakest at 27 percent.

[Brian S. Fitzgerald]

It makes sense to distribute energy production in some proportion, to counter large network failures and supply problems.

[Beeline]

So in a nutshell:
if wind power isnt available during a hot spell, then
even in newer growing communities you still need the capacity of a very large Coal/Oil Electricity generating plant that will be underutilized due to assisting Windpower.
Underutilized means the billing rates for the electricity will be high...have to be! So less oil will be burnt, still
have the need for the same capacity of Coal/Oil burning electricity plants and billing rates will go up, not down!

[DungeonMaster]

Wind power is an excellent thing, but Obama s*cks.