How New Transmission Lines Are Bringing More Wind Power to Texas Cities

From StateImpact Texas:

We’re all going to be paying for it, so you might be glad to know that a new set of transmission lines to bring wind power from the Panhandle and West Texas to folks in North and Central Texas appear to be off to a good start. According to a new federal analysis this week, the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones power transmission project, also known as CREZ, is already resulting in fewer curtailments of wind power and more even prices in Texas’ energy market.

The project cost $7 billion, a price that will be paid for by tacking on a fee to Texans’ utility bills. On average, your power bill could go up several dollars a month.

Before the lines went into operation, Texas had an odd problem: the state was producing too much wind power. Wind power grew so rapidly in Texas that it was a victim of its own success. More than half of the state’s wind power was built in a very short period, from 2006-09, according to the analysis from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and transmission couldn’t keep up.

“The Texas grid experienced major transmission congestion as the large volumes of electricity from these wind plants, which were concentrated in the rural western and northern areas of the state, were sometimes unable to reach the population centers in the eastern half of the state,” the EIA writes. There weren’t enough transmission lines to get the wind power to where it was needed, and at times the state’s grid had to curtail the wind power so they wouldn’t overload the transmission system.

More at http://kut.org/post/how-new-transmission-lines-are-bringing-more-wind-power-texas-cities .