Why the Texas grid causes the High Plains to turn off its wind turbines

More than 11,000 wind turbine are located in the Texas Panhandle and West Texas, which is the most in the state.

At least 9 million homes could be powered by wind energy. During high energy-demand summers like this one, experts say the additional energy could help provide much-needed stability to the electric grid.

Electricity produced in the High Plains stays there because it can't be moved elsewhere. Significant infrastructure upgrades are needed to ship out the energy produced in the region despite the growing development of wind energy in Texas.

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John Hensley, vice president for research and analytics at the American Clean Power, said that wind is at its peak production profile, but that a lot of it is being diverted to other areas. Because they don't have access to that lower-cost wind resource, energy consumers have to either conserve energy or pay more for it.

When the rest of the state is asked to conserve energy, the High Plains has to limit the amount of wind they can produce.

There isn't enough transmission to move the generators where they need to be. The wind generators are told to stop generating power. Wind farm operators have to disengage the generators completely to stop them from doing anything.

Texas has had a few energy scares this year due to high energy demand and hot temperatures. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state's electrical grid, warned about drops in energy production twice last month and asked people across the state to reduce their consumption.

Texans' pocketbooks have been hit by the energy issues. The price of natural gas has gone up more than 200% since February, causing elevated home utility bills.

The majority of the state's power generation comes from wind farms. Texas produced more than 25% of the nation's wind-powered electric generation last year.

The federal government provides subsidies for wind energy, which makes it one of the lowest priced energy sources. People who get their energy from wind farms in the High Plains region pay less for electricity than people who don't. With the price of natural gas increasing from inflation, areas that don't have access to wind energy have to rely on electricity.

Customers would get more from the wind generators if they could move it. It's the definition of transmission congestion. The cheaper electricity can't be moved through the grid.

There have been increases in stability constraints for wind energy in recent years that have limited the long-distance transfer of power.

It is not possible for energy to make it to the load centers. The High Plains wind power may be able to make it to Lubbock, but it may not be able to make it to Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston or Austin. It is costing Texans a lot of money.

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There would be a need for transmission. One of the first wind farms in the area was the Trent Wind Farm. The wind farm is located in West Texas and can provide power to 35,000 homes. The ERCOT system gets power from the site built by American Electric Power near a power transmission network.

There is a need for more transmission lines to be built to move more wind energy from the High Plains to other areas of the state.

There is no proposal to build new lines at the moment.

It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build a transmission line that will be in use for 40 or 50 years. It is a long process because you want to make sure the savings outweigh the costs. More transmission is needed in order to move more energy. The state is growing fast.

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According to the report, the failures that caused overwhelming human and economic suffering during February will increase in frequency and duration due to legacy market design flaws, growing infrastructure interdependence, economic and population growth drivers, and aging equipment.

While transmission upgrades across the state have generally been made in a timely manner, it has been difficult to add infrastructure where there has been rapid growth.

The state of Texas has prime real estate for wind power because of its open plains, and farmers can put up windmills on their land for financial relief.

Even with transmission issues, the boom in wind farms is still going on. Wind energy generation in Texas has gone up. The first offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico will produce enough energy to power 3 million homes and will be located off the coast of Texas and Louisiana.

When it comes to the amount of wind, solar and battery storage projects that are on the system in Texas, it's the highest in the country.

Wind and solar farms may not be able to provide the same amount of energy as the state needs all of the time. Low wind generation and cloud coverage in West Texas were listed by ERCOT as factors contributing to a tight energy supply.

Storage stations can help here. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, utility-scale batteries have tripled in capacity in the last two years. Storage projects are being developed in Texas. Texas only had 5 megawatt of battery storage capacity in 2011.

Storage can help to control intermittency issues when it comes to wind and solar technology. It's possible 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.

Transmission is still the most important factor to consider, even though storage technology can help.

The grid could be stable if solar is used. There are more than 161,000 solar installations in Texas. More than 1.5 million homes are powered by that.

The PUC formed a task force to develop a pilot program next year that would allow for the installation of solar panels and batteries on small scale systems to add energy to the grid. The program would make solar and batteries more accessible and affordable for customers and it would pay customers to share their stored energy to the grid.

When it comes to wind generation, Texas has the most clean-energy projects in the works.

It looks like they are going to be even further ahead six months or a year down the road.

The Texas grid causes the High Plains to turn off its wind turbine.