Texas completes $1 billion wind energy complex

Wind turbines collectively offering a 781.5-megawatt capacity now dot the landscape around Roscoe, Texas.

(Credit: E.ON Climate & Renewables)

One of the world's largest wind farms is now operational in the area surrounding Roscoe, Texas, E.ON Climate & Renewables (EC&R) announced Thursday.

The series of 627 wind turbines providing a 781.5-megawatt capacity covers about 100,000 acres and four Texas counties. But it's not an isolated wind farm per se, nor a uniform series of turbines.

The wind complex is a collaborative wind project with the community that included negotiations with over 300 landowners, and a mix of different turbines made by several companies including Mitsubishi, General Electric, and Siemens.

"Texas continues to lead the nation in the development of renewable energy and has more wind generation capacity than any other state and all but four countries," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement.

The wind turbines of the Roscoe, Texas, wind complex span 100,000 acres.

(Credit: E.ON Climate & Renewables)

The project took approximately 500 workers, and an investment of over $1 billion dollars to be implemented, according to EC&R.

But the investment should pay off in the end. At 781.5 megawatts, the Roscoe wind complex has the capacity to power 230,000 residences, according to EC&R.

The company said in a statement that the Texas project is "the completion of the world's largest wind farm near Roscoe, Texas (sic)" and that once completed, its London offshore wind project will be "the largest offshore wind farm in the world."

The announcement follows Perry's Wednesday meeting with Texas business leaders to express his views against proposed federal carbon cap-and-trade legislation, which are in opposition to those who feel the bill would encourage green technology innovation.

"Texas has shown you don't need federal mandates to improve the environment or foster the next generation of energy technology," Perry said in a statement.

"Texans should be wary about a cap-and-trade bill that would not only impose the largest tax hike in the history of the United States, but also inject the federal government further into every Texas home, farm and workplace," he said.

[bryanjbusch]

"But it's not an isolated wind farm per say, nor a uniform series of turbines."

Should be:

But it's not an isolated wind farm per se, nor a uniform series of turbines.

[contentcreator--2008]

Exactly. This from a blog with an editor. It seems journalism dies a slow death, one blog at a time.

[eeee]

sO WHAT? NOtice my WRiting skills.

THE SUBJUECT MATTER IS AWESOME AND I AM GLAD TO SEE THIS PROJECT IS ONLINE. WE NEED MORE OF THESE IN ALL AREAS THAT HAVE THE POTENTIAL WIND CURRENTS TO MAKE IT WORTHWHILE !!!

[Seaspray0]

OMG! A mistake! Whatever shall we do? Meh.

[wabcd]

EC&R is not releasing actual cost numbers on this project. This quote (from where) of over $1 billion - means what? $2 billion, $3 billion. How much subsidies were they given? We know this Wind Farm got a $121.9 million federal grant. We know the Texas Public Utilities Commission is getting $5 billion from the public to pay for some of the Transmission Line expansion, for the Wind Turbines, or $500 per pk watt, for at best a 10% capacity credit. That is, all of those Wind Turbines can only replace at most 78 MW of current fossil fuel power plants.

Using actual published numbers - best example. Pickens World's largest ever Wind Farm for Texas, was $2,000 per pk kw of Wind Energy. With transmission line upgrades of at least $500 per pk kw. Add Installation cost, road construction etc we have around $2800 per pk kw, which is on the low side for typical Wind Farms. At Texas average 31% capacity factor that yields $2800/.31 = $9033 per avg kw. Note this is only during the early part of the Wind Turbines lifespan, where capacity falls as the Turbine ages, due to maintenance downtime, debris & damage to the Turbine Blades. It also does not include increasing occasions when the Grid cannot accept the rapidly peaking Wind Energy, and Wind Energy must be discarded. Including the 10% transmission losses, we are up to $10,036 per avg kw. And we haven't even considered the cost & losses of backup power generation.

To avoid dumping Wind Peaks, that the Grid cannot absorb, you can install peak shavers, like Altairnano is selling, that will add about $800 per avg kw. Serious energy storage, like Pumped Hydro or batteries will cost at least $2000 per avg kw for a lousy 6 hrs storage, at a best 85% efficiency. Now we are already up to $13,200 per kw delivered. AND WE STILL NEED NG OR COAL BACKUP FOR WIND LULLS which are common for days and even weeks, ESPECIALLY IN THE SUMMER WHEN ENERGY DEMAND IS HIGHEST!!

$13,200 per kw delivered for intermittent, unreliable, unpredictable power that only lasts for 20 years before decommissioning (cost not included in the above). And still generates large amounts of emissions due to the need for fossil fuel power plants to complement the fluctuating Wind Energy - running in their most INEFFICIENT MANNER!

Whereas Nuclear coming in at $5000 per avg kw for 60-80 yrs of reliable baseload, 100% green, power, with operating & maintenance costs similar or even lower than Wind Energy. This is with zero supply chain established, and still entrenched bureaucratic roadblocks to Nuclear - put there by the fossil fuel lobby. The projected costs of New Nuclear, with factory produced small plants and factory produced Modular Reactors is under $2,000 per kw electrical and under $1000 per kw thermal for CHP & desalination applications. The Hyperion small reactors are being sold for $40 million for 25 MWe and 70 MWth or $1600 per kw electric & $570 per kw thermal.

You think Wind is Green? You are ignoring the problems of Grid Integration and need for Fossil Fuel Backup energy. THE TRUTH ABOUT WIND ENERGY: is summed up with these facts. #1 Wind Energy country, Denmark has the highest power rates in Europe and produces the highest CO2 emissions of 881 gm CO2 per kwh of electricity, #2 Wind Power Germany produces 601 gm CO2 per kwh, while Nuclear France produces 83 gm CO2 per kwh, lower than any industrialized country in the World, and has the lowest electricity prices in Europe.

To learn about Texas Wind Energy, see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUbGZHXD7fM

To learn the truth about Wind Energy, see:

http://www.aweo.org/ProblemWithWind.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvg0NNr8Xdo

[kaiman75]

"Texas has shown you don't need federal mandates to improve the environment or foster the next generation of energy technology," Perry said in a statement.

Yeah but where is the 1 billion dollars for this project coming from? Hmm, let's see... Texas taxpayers maybe? Pot, meet kettle...

[texaslabrat]

Actually no, the money came from EC&R. And even overlooking that error, I want to congratulate you on missing the point completely re: government mandate. Do you even understand the difference between subsidies and mandates? Apparently not. I'm no fan of Perry, but your statement is just plain ignorant.

[bj1126]

All fine and good but didn't they nix the transmission lines that would get the power out of there? Or was that the massive $2b Pickens project they did that too?

[texaslabrat]

pickens project in the Panhandle is what you are thinking of...and AFAIK they aren't necessarily "nixed"..just delayed.

[digitaljoel]

psh. 156 square miles of wind farm and still not enough to power the flux capacitor!

[Andronicus]

$1billion ($1,000,000,000) to power 230,000 homes (less than 1 million people). That seems very expensive, but how does that compair to traditional generation meathods (Hydro, Coal, Natural Gas)?

[texaslabrat]

traditional fossil-fueled power plants cost $1-$2 per watt of generating capacity. So the capital costs of the wind farm are pretty much right at apples-to-apples. However, there is no fuel to buy over the next few decades to run the wind farm...so the costs are DRAMATICALLY lower than would be seen with a fossil-fuel powered generation plant when taken over the expected lifetime of the facility. Add in "intangibles" such as environmental damage (which are comprised of much more than simple greenhouse effects) and the gap just continues to widen in favor of wind installations like this. To truly "do it right" though, and have wind be on par with baseload generation, some sort of storage will need to be implemented at some point in order to compensate for the variation of the wind. However, things like Vanadium-Redox batteries (and other technologies) are out there for this sort of thing and can be quite economical when built for this scale of application.

[Squashman2]

That is roughly $4,347 per home. Not sure of the life span or maintenance costs, but they should be able to recoup that cost over a 10 year period you would think.

[bildan2]

Roscoe? Most Texans think the biggest source of wind comes from the statehouse in Austin.

[tech_crazy]

Hahaha! Good one!

[kirkktx]

The wind blows mostly at night - not during peak demand.

That means infrastructure for thermal storage needs to be built (e.g. make ice at night for AC use the following day). The only way that will be built is if "Time of Use" (TOU) billing is implemented. It takes smart meters in order to build TOU. With lower nighttime rates, more people will buy wind electricity and chill ice for daytime airconditioning.

Maybe some day Google will sell ad space to electricity generation companies on top of their Power Meter app.
http://www.google.org/powermeter/

[Sheesh_]

781.5-megawatt capacity, but what is actual output (maybe to early to have real numbers.) This question is along the lines of when the power is generated.

I know a few of the California wind plants run on average at 40%-60% of capacity. That changes the numbers in a hurry.

[ferricoxide]

Judging by what I observed (clearly just anecdotal), it seemed like, at any given time, you'd see maybe a third of the turbines active. That sorta jives with the California numbers. One would *hope* that the 781.5Mw is expected average generational capacity rather than a "100% in use and in a gale" number. Given that they have to "sell" viability, though, it's probably the latter rather than the former.

That aside, 2.3 homes worth of (maximum) generational capacity per acre seems like a horribly inefficient yield. Factor in energy bleed in the transmission lines (etc.), and it becomes even less competitive than non-green/sustainable energy sources.

[Arbalest05]

In response to "ferricoxide" comment about the generating capacity per acre - Roscoe is a farming community, the land under the wind turbines is still farmed. What's even better is that the farmers (the land owners, that is) earn between $5000 and $15000 per turbine on their land, per year. I can tell you that the people of Roscoe are pretty happy about farming wind along with cotton and other crops.

Wind in that part of Texas is said to be an almost constant 17mph.

[bridge solution]

i recall when electric rates >were< ~7.5 cents kwh, and wind was estimated at 18-21 cents per kwh. at the time, gasline was ~.$0. 97. . . if the 781 is max, and this plant >never< exceeds 40% its producing at ~31 cents. and gas is, today, $2.37, which tells me what a new coal plant would produce at ,,if built.
and wind ...so far...doesn;t seem to put radioactive debris into the air, which a nuke plant can, and a coal plant >>does<<.

[kaiman75]

@texaslabrat

I certainly understand the difference between mandates and subsidies, but where did EC&R get the $1 billion from if not from the stimulus? Was it in the form of tax breaks from the state of Texas, aka, your taxes? Or what?

I am all for renewable energy, but I find that when politicians make such a big deal out of stuff like this they are either trying to get re-elected or applying bait and switch techniques to cover the money trail.

[texaslabrat]

If you will bother to google them and read..they are a consortium that does this sort of thing as a business model. Some businesses actually have the ability to attract capital for investment. Shocker, I know..but it happens.

Considering that this project has been in the works long before the stimulus was even a concept on Capitol Hill...I think it should be self-explanatory that this was not linked to the stimulus package.

[Jeff Putz]

Something I've often wondered... why are turbines generally so spread apart from each other?

[texaslabrat]

They are spread apart because when the turbines create wind "shadows" behind them where the wind has very little energy and another turbine placed in that shadow would be much much less efficient. Simlilar to the tactics that sail boat racers use to cut the wind off from their opponents by being upwind. By placing them far enough apart, this effect can be minimized/eliminated.

[hdc77494]

A billion dollars and one hundred thousand acres of land to power 233,000 homes?? Are you kidding me? Why are we throwing billions in subsidies at this? How many decades are we away from usable wind energy? Using 100,000 acres of land to power a small city is grossly inefficient. Sadly without massive government subsidies projects like this couldn't attract investors, nor customers.

[ccd6116]

It never ceases to amaze me at the naivete of smart and not so smart people in regard to ?renewable? power. As a ex-utility engineer I can say with out fear of being proved wrong that Wind farms and solar cells will NEVER!! replace coal, gas and nuclear energy. The one glaring problem is simple renewable energy does NOT SUPPLY ENERGY 24/7!! People who think otherwise are deluded. You will NEVER be able to shut down any power plants using them.

Worse then that Energy costs will go to levels not ever seen by the public. More then that, in my opinion, I believe that nation wide electrical energy reliability will be severely effected.

Even the most rosy engineering studies talk about the difficulty of integrating ?Renewable generation? into the current and future electrical transmission and distribution systems. More then that it is very clear (to me at least) that unless the nation is willing to except everything up to and including rolling blackouts and rationing (think California 2001) this bills like Cap and Trade will be catastrophic.