Wind Energy

By: Terry Shannon

http://www.window.state.tx.us/

Roscoe Wind Farm, west of Abilene

Wind energy is among the world’s fastest-growing sources of energy. During the last decade, wind energy growth rates worldwide averaged about 30 percent annually.  In the last three years, the U.S. and Texas wind energy markets also have experienced a rapid expansion of capacity. In 2007, for example, U.S. wind power capacity grew by 43 percent, while Texas’ rose by 57 percent.

This growth has been driven by a variety of factors including government subsidies and tax incentives, improved technology, higher fossil fuel prices and investor concerns about potential federal action to reduce carbon emissions, which could make electricity from fossil fuels more expensive.

Wind power is an abundant, widely distributed energy resource that has zero fuel cost, zero emissions and zero water use. Wind’s challenges are largely related to its variable nature – wind speed and direction can change by the season, day, hour and minute. For electricity grid operators the variability of wind – sometimes too much wind is blowing and at others too little – makes it difficult to integrate wind into a grid that was not designed for fluctuations. Moreover, surplus wind power cannot be stored, given current technology.

While wind power represents only a small portion of Texas’ overall electricity production (about three percent), the state’s wind capacity is growing rapidly. High wind speeds, improved wind technology, and government subsidies and tax incentives have contributed to the growth of wind power in the state. With new transmission lines planned by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) to serve parts of Texas with strong winds, wind’s share of overall state capacity is likely to continue to grow in the coming years.

Many Texas landowners have willingly leased their lands to wind developers, but others oppose the industry. The siting of wind turbines can be problematic, due to opposition to their appearance, noise and potential hazard to wildlife. Some landowners complain that without a permitting process for wind projects, they have no way to protect their property rights.

Transmission is another significant hurdle, since the best sites for wind energy development often are far away from urban centers and the wire networks that provide them with power. Some landowners object to transmission lines traversing their ranches and farms, claiming they will lower their property values. Other critics say that wind energy, like other forms of alternative energy, is not really economically viable without substantial government subsidies and incentives.

Still, wind power can provide economic value to some property owners. Property owners leasing land for wind turbine development receive a steady income (although landowners with transmission towers and lines passing through their land receive only a one-time payment). And wind projects, like other energy projects, create construction and operation jobs and expand the local property tax base.