West Central Texas is now home to the world's largest & America's tallest wind farms
http://media.reporternews.com/abil/c..._talltower.jpg
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I didn't know any of the 3MW class turbines were on line yet. Great news.
21 turbines to produce 63MW. That's quite an economical improvement, conisdering 5-10 years ago it would have taken at least 70 turbines to get the same power output. Hopefully 3MW machines become the standard, and we can tripple the output of installations planned around the 1MW class. And some people say wind turbines are ugly, but I've stood directly underneath a 1MW turbine in Illinois, and it was incredibly beautiful and serene, and just a bit sureal. |
Good for them. Perhaps one day the oil rigs that in our collective memory represent Texas will be replaced by these things dotting the countryside.
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I've seen that place before
They're so freakin huge! |
Energy utility's new power
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...undup.htmlDana DeBeauvoir Starting Monday, Austin Energy's GreenChoice program will have a new power source. Electricity for GreenChoice, ranked the No. 1 utility-sponsored green power program in the nation for sales every year since 2002, will now come from a new West Texas wind farm. The farm, about 75 miles northeast of Lubbock, will be sending Austin close to 200 million kilowatt-hours annually for the next 15 years. Another wind farm is set to go online at the end of the year, according to Austin Energy. The green power charge for the new wind supply is 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. That charge will stay fixed through 2023. The current standard fuel charge is 3.65 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to Austin Energy. New subscriptions will be accepted starting Monday. http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...13roundup.html |
sweet good for texas...
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I've seen this area from the plane a few times... pretty massive.
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Abilene feels like the capitol of wind energy. The city is literally surrounded by wind farms. The hills that sit south of I-20 from Abilene to Sweetwater are topped with more wind turbines than you could even begin to count. Almost 50 miles of these giants. It's also wild watching them ship the thing in pieces. You'll see massive pieces of the bases traveling (slowly) down the highway and the blades being transported by trains through the city. Kinda cool.
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From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/news/conten.../0216wind.html Austin looking to own wind farm Ownership will ensure permanent supply, control costs By Kate Alexander AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAF Saturday, February 16, 2008 Austin Energy is looking to cultivate its own wind farm in West Texas as a way to ensure permanent access to wind power. Owning the wind turbines — rather than contracting for the power — would guarantee a supply of wind power into the future and give the utility more control over cost and other market factors, said Michael McCluskey, deputy general manager of Austin Energy. All of Austin Energy's wind power comes from long-term contracts with independent producers. The first contract is set to expire in 2011. The first step toward a wind farm would be to reserve the leasing rights to about 20,000 acres in Pecos County where wind turbines can be erected in the future. In coming weeks, the City Council is expected to approve $120,000 to option the West Texas land and begin studying the wind generation option. The change in approach is being driven, in part, by the rising cost of the power purchase agreements that Austin Energy has used to secure a wind supply since its GreenChoice program began in 2001. The price of wind under Austin's 2001 contract was 1.7 cents per kilowatt-hour. Under the latest contract, which took effect at the beginning of the year, the cost is 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average home uses about 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month. When the first contract expires in 2011, Austin Energy will have to negotiate another agreement at market rate to keep the same amount of wind blowing into the system. Skyrocketing construction costs and high demand for wind turbines have played a major role in the price increase of wind power. But the larger energy market is also a factor, McCluskey said. As natural gas prices have risen, customers have been willing to pay more for wind, so the market rate has gone up accordingly. By owning the wind turbines, McCluskey said Austin Energy can provide power to its customers that is based solely on the cost of production, and without the markup. Ryan Wiser, a scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said that "the days of the two-cent wind contract are currently over," so it makes sense for Austin Energy to look for alternative ways to get its wind. Whether the ownership arrangement will lead to cheaper wind power is unclear, Wiser said. As a public utility, Austin Energy has access to low-cost financing for the construction of the wind farm. But Austin Energy cannot take advantage of some key federal incentives that private wind developers have used to lower the cost of producing wind. "The real question is whether Austin Energy's lower financing costs ... are enough to cover the disincentive," Wiser said. The ideal arrangement, Wiser said, would be for Austin Energy to partner with an experienced wind developer to take advantage of both the incentives and the low-cost financing. Michael Sloan, a renewable energy consultant with Austin-based Virtus Energy and a wind power advocate, is concerned that Austin Energy has no experience in wind generation. That concern can be alleviated by a careful selection of a development partner, he said. "It's great that Austin Energy is continuing to support wind power, including building their own," Sloan said. "I am hopeful they will continue down this path." Specifics such as size and total project cost are not available. It's too early to say what proportion of the utility's energy supply could come from a wind farm. Most of the project's cost will be in upfront construction expenses; ongoing costs will be relatively small. The wind to turn the turbines, of course, will be free. How Austin will fuel its future has been an issue of much debate. This week, the Austin City Council turned down an offer to own a minority stake in the expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear plant because council members said they had too little time to evaluate the proposal. Austin Energy will soon begin an extensive public process to get community input into future power options. |
I wish I would have had my camera with me yesterday because they were transporting one blade of a new turbine down S. 14th in Abilene yesterday. They had all lanes of traffic shut down and a police escort. It is simply incredible how big those things are. I think this one was going to a new wind farm they are building just Southwest of Abilene off 277.
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