Powerful March winds have brought a new wind-power record of more than 10,000 megawatts (MW) to Texas, the most famous oil state in the United States.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region produced the record of 10,296MW on Wednesday of last week the grid operator said in a statement.
Reuters Newsagency reports that at the time ERCOT said wind generation provided nearly 29 per cent of the 35,768MW of electricity used on the grid.
The record is not the first as the new record beats the previous one, set earlier last month, by more than 600MW.
Of the total generation at the time, 1433MW came from wind generators on the Gulf Coast, while 8863MW came from other regions, ERCOT said.
Most came from West Texas, where transmission projects in the so-called Competitive Renewable Energy Zones were recently completed to transport more power from that region to more populated areas of the state.
ERCOT’s vice president of Grid Planning and Operations, Ken McIntyre, commented in a press release, “With the continuing growth in wind generation capacity and the completion of new transmission projects to get it to the grid, ERCOT is making greater use of this resource.”
One megawatt provides enough electricity to power about 200 homes in ERCOTt during peak-use periods, and about 500 homes during mild weather when less electricity is being consumed.
Reuters reports Texas has more wind power capacity than any other state in the US.
The ERCOT region has more than 11,000MW of commercial wind power capacity, with nearly 8000MW of new projects in development and more than 26,700MW under study.
Wind power comprised 9.9 per cent of the total energy used in the ERCOT region in 2013, compared to 9.2 per cent in 2012.
ERCOT manages the flow of power to nearly 24 million Texas customers, representing 85 per cent of the state’s electric load.
Some of the biggest wind power companies in Texas include units of E.ON AG, AES Corp, NextEra Energy, American Electric Power Company, Pattern Energy Group, Iberdrola SA and EDP Energias de Portugal.
