Anyway the Wind Blows

The West Texas wind industry expects to be thriving soon because of recent actions by the state of Texas and Congress. Last summer Congress approved a comprehensive energy bill that included a two-year extension of a federal production tax credit, key to development of costly wind projects.

More recently, Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill to expand Texas' renewable energy requirements and expand the state's transmission grid to move more West Texas wind energy to metropolitan markets.

The legislation will increase investment in new projects, creating a wealth of economic opportunities, said Greg Wortham, executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium, a nonprofit alliance of landowners, governments and others involved in the industry.

Today, there are five wind farms in Taylor, Nolan, Borden and Scurry counties. Once all current projects are completed, there will be about 1,000 wind turbines in the area. Taylor and Nolan counties lead the numbers race with approximately 350 turbines each.

The Horse Hollow II project, located in Taylor county, covers approximately 100,000 acres. At its completion, the project will be the largest wind farm in the world.

The prime factor in wind farm placement, according to Wortham, is the combination of wind resource and transmission capability. “That’s the magic thing we have in this area, the ability to move the power once it’s produced,” he said. “The best wind resource in Texas may not be the best place for farms if there are no transmission capabilities,” he added.

Tax abatements given by local counties have helped some companies, but the concern was that without the federal tax credits, companies could not go forward with projects or expansions ''This legislation should certainly stimulate the industry,” Wortham explained.

Companies use production tax credits to offset the high investment cost of roughly $1 million per turbine to develop a wind project. The PTC extension will extend the current 1.9-cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit through Dec. 31, 2007.

In reality, wind energy is a converted form of solar energy. The sun's radiation heats different parts of the earth at different rates, especially from night to day, but also when different surfaces like water and land absorb or reflect at different rates. This in turn causes portions of the atmosphere to warm differently. Hot air rises, reducing the atmospheric pressure at the earth's surface, and cooler air is drawn in to replace it. The result is wind.

Air has mass, and when it is in motion, it contains the kinetic energy of that motion. A wind energy system transforms the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical or electrical energy that can be harnessed for practical use. Wind electric turbines generate electricity for homes and businesses and for sale to utilities.

Motorists throughout the Abilene area are becoming familiar with the towering horizontal-axis wind turbines which are most common today, constituting nearly all of the utility-scale turbines in the global market.

The electricity generated by a utility-scale wind turbine is normally collected and fed into utility power lines, where it is mixed with electricity from other power plants and delivered to utility customers. Today, turbines with capacities as large as 5,000 kW (5 MW) are being tested.

The output of a wind turbine depends on the turbine's size and the wind's speed through the rotor. According to Wortham, a steady wind is more desirable than gusting winds for electrical production. Wind turbines being manufactured now have power ratings ranging from 250 watts to 5 megawatts (MW).

According to American Wind Energy Association information, a 10-kW wind turbine can generate about 10,000 kWh annually at a site with wind speeds averaging 12 miles per hour. A 5-MW turbine can produce more than 15 million kWh in a year--enough to power more than 1, 400 households. The average U.S. household consumes about 10,000 kWh of electricity each year.

Wind energy system operations do not produce air or water emissions and do not result in hazardous waste. Nor do they deplete natural resources, cause environmental damage, or require significant amounts of water during operation.

In 2006, the American Wind Energy Association estimates that wind plants in the U.S. will generate 24 billion kilowatt-hours.

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a goal of obtaining 6% of U.S. electricity from wind by 2020. This goal is consistent with the current rate of growth of wind energy nationwide. As public demand for clean energy grows, and as the cost of producing energy from the wind continues to decline, it is likely that wind energy will provide a growing portion of the nation's energy supply.