In the spring of 2007, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) began airing a series of radio advertisements in support of a Federal Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, which the House of Representatives adopted in August and the Senate excised in December.

By Peter Hildebrandt

More than 20 states have enacted successful renewable electricity standards. The since-removed amendment called on electric utilities to obtain 20% of the electricity they sell from clean, renewable energy sources by 2020, or to purchase sufficient renewable energy credits to meet the requirement. Up to 4% of this amount can be achieved through energy efficiency measures.

According to the AWEA, such a standard would slow global warming, reduce energy bills, create jobs, revitalize rural America (farmers and rural landowners in windy areas are reaping payments of $3,000–$8,000 per turbine per year, while still being able to work their land), and strengthen energy security.

While the House and Senate are hashing out the prospect of a Federal Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, Texas has quietly been working on increasing its green energy output in a big way: As of the end of 2007, Texas surpassed California as the largest producer of wind energy. Texas now has 3,352 MW; California has 2,376 MW.

Two of the largest wind farms in the US are in Texas. Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, a 735-MW development owned by FPL Energy, is also the largest wind farm in the world. Sweetwater Wind Farm, the second largest in Texas, is owned by Catamount Energy Inc. and Babcock and Brown. In the summer of 2007, construction of Phase 5 was under way in Sweetwater. This will take the farm to a total of 586 MW.

The Horse Hollow installation is adjacent to the Sweetwater complex. There are some dozen projects within a 40-mile radius. It gets harder to tell where one project starts and another ends, according to Bruce Peacock, managing director of Vermont’s Catamount Energy Inc., who is also acting as construction manager on Sweetwater Phase 5.

The Sweetwater project was originally an Enron Wind project. Enron Wind tied up the land and spoke to developers with the idea of using the Enron Wind Turbines at that site. General Electric (GE) subsequently purchased Enron and decided it didn’t want to develop any further. GE gave the development rights for Sweetwater to a company called DKR, now DKRW Wind Energy Inc., based in Houston, provided that GE turbines were used.

DKR did much of the legwork for the initial phase of the project as well as the legwork for the electrical interconnection. Catamount Energy and Babcock and Brown came in with financing in order to enable Phase 1 to happen, according to Peacock. Phase 1 was completed using a financing structure that Babcock had pioneered that took advantage of the federal tax incentives.

Phase 1, completed in 2003, was small; with only 25 turbines and 37 MW, but it established the large Bitter Creek Substation where all the rest of Sweetwater’s phases have connected as well. At the beginning of 2004, it went online. Phase 2, with 91.5 MW, came online beside Phase 1, in February 2005. Both of these phases use GE turbines, as does Phase 3.

Phase 4, which is 241 MW and went online in May 2007, uses Mitsubishi and Siemens turbines. It supplies 135 MW from Mitsubishi turbines and 105.8 MW from Siemens turbines. The wind farm now extends 20 miles from Lake Sweetwater to Maryneal, TX.

“This is by far our largest investment. I believe it’s Babcock and Brown’s largest investment as well, although they have many other US projects, whereas we have many others in development, but nothing operating,” says Peacock.

Catamount Energy Inc. started out as an IPP company, a subsidiary of Central Vermont Public Service in the early 1990s, and has done a number of different projects. In 2000, the company decided to focus on wind and sold off most of its nonwind projects. It still has a few biomass projects, but the vast majority of its work now is involved with wind. In 2005, Diamond Castle Holdings, a New York private equity firm, purchased Catamount.

“We decided to focus on wind because of the environmental issues—the fact that this is a nonpolluting power plant—and because the cost per kilowatt-hour of wind is now coming down to a reasonable number,” says Peacock. “In the early 1980s, it was 20 cents per kilowatt, and in 2000 it was down to four cents. Lately various factors, including supply and demand, have again brought the price per kilowatt-hour back up.

“It seemed like a reasonably priced industry, and it was environmentally friendly. The market drivers have been strong ever since we focused on it, though the price has risen for materials and there is a great deal of demand for turbines out there. Turbine suppliers are making better profits now. But wind power remains as competitive as natural gas—that’s why you’re seeing thousands of MW installed in Texas. Finding reasonably priced wind turbines has been our biggest snag so far. There was no local opposition to this development, at least none that I know of.”

Key to Success
Though other states such as Wyoming also have a great deal of wind, they do not have as extensive wind development as this one in central and West Texas, due to shortage of transmission lines, according to Peacock. Texas is crisscrossed with major transmission lines; in fact, Catamount Energy’s project connects to a double 345-kV line that serves the Dallas–Forth Worth area. “But on the other hand, Texas has now used up their available transmission, and new wind development depends heavily on additional transmission spending,” adds Peacock.

Texas remains in the forefront of that program by establishing a Competitive Renewable Energy Zone program, which the Public Utilities Commission of Texas is sponsoring, to determine where to spend money on transmission for the benefit of wind. It identified a great number of areas, and then hundreds of developers have given arguments about why and which areas should be expanded.

Clearly, it must be admitted that wind power is an intermittent power source, especially in the summer. According to Peacock, “When I call up a report in the middle of summer, our 241-megawatt Phase 4 is sometimes putting out as few as 3 megawatts. That’s simply the way it is: The summer months are typically low-wind periods, and the winter and fall months have much greater output. Wind will never displace the need for must-run generation, whether it’s nuclear or coal, oil or gas-fired generated power. But what it does is reduce the amount of fossil fuel you actually have to burn; you still must have that standby power. This displacing of 586 megawatts is the equivalent of powering 293,000 homes, assuming an annual usage of over 7,000 kilowatt-hours per household.

“We’re very active in the UK, where we have five wind farms. But it’s also difficult there because of a lack of transmission lines. People will have to wait for 10 years for wind-generated power due to a lack of transmission. Germany’s great development of wind is due to their very attractive electric rate structure for wind. Basically, if you install a wind farm, the utilities are required to pay you a very high rate. They’re the world leader, but I think they’ve reached their limits.”

World’s Largest Wind Farm
At 735 MW, the Horse Hollow development remains the largest wind farm development in the world. FPL sells the energy derived from their wind turbines directly to the wholesale market.

FPL Energy’s Horse Hollow installation first involved site identification, then followed environmental and geotechnical studies, transmission feasibility, and a look at land leasing issues. The timeline for the entire process was approximately two and a half years.

FPL Energy is a competitive energy supplier that utilizes clean fuels such as natural gas, wind, and solar to generate electricity. It is the nation’s leader in wind energy, with 49 projects currently in operation in 15 states. It is a subsidiary of FPL Group, one of the nation’s largest providers of electricity-related services with annual revenues of nearly $16 billion. FPL Group’s principal subsidiary is Florida Power & Light Co., one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving 4.4 million customer accounts in Florida.

FPL Energy has a long and successful track record in wind energy development and operation. From 2000 through 2006, FPL Energy added more than 3,500 MW to its wind portfolio. No company in the world has added more wind capacity through new development than FPL Energy.

“With demand for energy continuing to increase, we believe wind power can have a positive impact on diversifying our energy supply and improving our environment,” says Mitch Davidson, president of FPL Energy. “We need more economic, reliable, and domestic sources of electricity to operate our homes and businesses, and wind energy is an important and growing part of our energy supply.”

In 2006, FPL Energy installed about one-third of all of the new wind energy added in the US. The Horse Hollow and Red Canyon wind projects alone represent an investment by FPL Energy subsidiaries of more than $1 billion in Texas.

“Continuation of the tremendous growth we’ve seen in wind energy is not without its challenges,” Davidson adds. “Timely extension of the renewable energy production tax credit, along with addressing ongoing transmission and interconnection challenges, is vital to our ability to meet these goals and the long-term viability of the wind generation industry.”

Texas Far in Front
Why Texas? What most people view as an ideal mountain location for a wind turbine, a high craggy peak such as those in the Rockies, is not necessarily the best site for one.

“Sustained winds of 120 miles per hour on a high mountaintop for a week at a time are not what wind turbines are designed to stand,” says Greg Wortham, executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium (WTWEC). “It’s better to receive 20 miles per hour all the time, as often exists on the ridge tops where our turbines are largely located. Designers are realizing it’s not worth bothering with Class 7 winds when Class 3 winds actually are more efficient at generating power; in addition, it’s very hard to construct a wind turbine in a remote, steep, and rocky mountain area.

“More wind turbines now line the mesas in these Texas counties than in all of China. Nolan County, 30 miles by 30 miles, and its town of Sweetwater have one understated billboard announcing the fact that it’s a world player in wind power, often missed as cars speed along I-20 at 75 miles per hour. However, it’s now possible to drive for 150 miles along this stretch without ever losing sight of a turbine. And things are changing from week to week.

“The three largest wind-power projects in the US are located here and virtually every type of wind turbine manufactured can be found here. The wind power in West Texas is easily one-third of all the wind power created in the US. No country, with the exception of Germany, has more wind power being generated than this region of Texas, with its 4,000 megawatts of wind energy. There is nobody out there who comes close to touching us in this,” says Wortham.

Onboard with Wind
“The WTWEC was organized in 2004,” notes Wortham. “Our group consists of many principals in the region, comprising more than 100 Texas counties covering some 140,000 square miles, basically everything west of Fort Worth. Some of those counties are members of our consortium, and some are not. We have about a million people who are members. This includes Babcock and Brown Inc., but it’s also counties and school districts, ranchers, farmers, chambers of commerce, heavy industry, small businesses, and colleges in the area,” he adds. “We’re trying to recruit jobs and do other things while the investors are at the other end of the equation.

“This is huge here and people need to understand that, ironically, it’s huge in the heart of an oil and gas region,” says Wortham. “It’s ranchers, farmers, and oil people—those who don’t usually get any credit for being environmentally conscious. Yet, all the groups who do count themselves as environmentally conscious in other areas can’t seem to get out of their own ways. They’re so busy biting themselves that we all keep drifting down the coal road because of that attitude. In Texas, once it’s decided it’s decided. Since each family and each community with wind turbines on their land decides, they’ve all come together and said: ‘OK, now let’s get to work.’”

Though this huge wind development is in the middle of oil-rich Texas, the idea of powering wells from local wind turbines is not yet feasible, according to Peacock. “Most oil wells are connected to the local distribution system,” says Peacock. “But the reality is most commercial wind farms connect at transmission voltage lines. It would make sense that the electrons created locally are used locally, but it is an indirect path.”

“Wind power in Germany, the country with the largest wind-power developments in the world, is now a mature expansion,” according to Wortham. “They’ve used as much of their land as they want for wind power. In Europe there will most likely be little further wind power deployment. The countries seeing the most expansion of this resource will be India or China. Even Canada now has only half what we have here in Nolan County. Canada’s development of wind is very much like New York City power plants. Everyone lines up at the New York Power Authority to be issued a replacement power. Everybody fights for it, and if you don’t get it you must go back home because there’s nothing else coming up until they issue another one.

“But in this part of Texas it’s a whole different situation, purely a private market opportunity. Each project is completed in phases, has a different set of investors, and a different power purchase and sales
contract.” There are many different buyers of the Texas wind system. The City of Austin buys from Sweetwater II and part of Sweetwater III; San Antonio buys from Sweetwater III; certain retailers, such as Direct Energy, THU and the Lower Colorado River Water Authority, purchase some of their energy; and Florida Power and Light deals with it wholesale.

Now For the Questions
Though wind power is a nonpolluting, affordable source and definitely an answer to the problem of carbon-dioxide emissions, the biggest restrictions to wind farms worldwide have been aesthetics and the death of birds and bats because of migratory patterns. Bats have been a concern, as San Antonio and Austin purchase their power from the region and those areas are very concerned about the flying mammal. There are a large number of studies on bats and wind turbines.

“If you put a wind turbine at the mouth of a bat cave, that would be a problem,” says Wortham. “But if the turbines are dispersed across the landscape as ours are, they are not a problem.

“People are not opposed to the turbines in this area because of the aesthetics, yet I think that is one issue, somewhat trumped-up, that people do put up. Other than a handful of people, there are no objections. Communities in the region are struggling over each other to get these things.

“The fact that some of the states in the east are getting awards from the Department of Energy for their small wind installations, some even merely test facilities, is an insult to those of us who are really doing this, especially when those awards are in states that have fought wind development so hard off their shores.

“There is an awful lot of misinformation out there about wind in our area. This is real. You can come out and kick them, count them, spin them, observe the workers; this is not some concept and not merely one person giving a press conference. This involves a million people.”

Distributed Energy Aspects
Several local heavy industries are looking to power their factories with the area’s wind turbines. Smaller, 50-kW turbine projects at schools are also in the area or soon coming online. But there is more of a concept of distributed energy to recruit the industry with the idea of building 10 MW out in the area where there isn’t a concern to hook them up to the grid, says Wortham.

“Physically it now goes in the grid so that if there is a terrorist attack between here and Dallas, the B-1 Air Force base still has power because there are 2,000 megawatts of wind energy out here,” says Wortham.

“They’re going to have to knock out 1,500 wind turbines to knock out the power supply. So, in terms of emergency and contingency plans for civilians and the military, this is distributed generation on a whole different scale of output. I really think the whole definition of distributed energy turns out to be in a state of flux with developments such as these; it runs the gamut. You often hear there is no political will to pull off such developments.

“My advice is simple: Come here and see the future. Do you want to wait until some mythical future date? There is a movement called 25 by 25, which would mean that in the year 2025, 25% of US energy would be derived from wind. But we propose that those truly interested come to see what wind power can be now. We currently have that sort of concentration here. If you come here and decide you don’t like this concentration of wind energy, then you don’t even want to work toward accomplishing wind by that date.

“But if you do, at least come and make an informed decision not based on theory, but something actually in place and operating. Do it with information based on what’s really going on here in Texas. This is not theoretical, this is what’s already here—and things are changing here, literally, every hour.” 

Peter Hildebrandt is a writer specializing in science and engineering topics.

DE - March/April 2008