Wind generated a record 22.8% of electricity last year in the main Texas power market, surpassing former leader coal for the first time as the US state with the highest carbon emissions accelerates its transition to cleaner energy sources.

Wind farms in Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) produced 87 million MWh of electricity versus 68.5 million MWh from coal, or 17.9% of 381.9 million MWh from all generation sources.

By comparison, in 2010, coal generated 125 million MWh of power, or 39.5% of the market that serves 90% of Texas’ electric load, against 25 million MWh for wind, or 7.8%.

Natural gas provided 173.7 million MWh of electricity with a market-leading 45.3% share, followed by nuclear with 41.6 million MWh, or 10.9%, with solar PV also setting a calendar year record at 8.75 million MWh, or 2.3%.

ERCOT is essentially an island within the US – one of three US synchronous grids, the others being the much larger Eastern and Western Interconnections. It operates a deregulated energy-only market in which generators are paid only for the power they produce. There are no mandates to direct renewables to certain levels.

Over the last 15 years, ERCOT has become the leading US wind power market with 25.1GW of installed capacity through the end of 2020.

Among the reasons driving that growth are a thriving Canada-size state economy, availability of private land for projects, geographically diverse wind resource, a low business cost and tax environment, major expansion of long-haul transmission infrastructure, and the grid operator’s ability to integrate additional wind energy without compromising reliability and low system costs.

ERCOT has also become the leading global region for corporate purchases of wind energy led by manufacturing and technology companies.

Wind’s meteoric surge is slowing, however, as utility-scale solar becomes more cost-competitive and transmission congestion increases in West Texas where most turbines are located.

On 1 October, ERCOT reported wind developers had almost 24GW of projects in the interconnection queue versus none for coal.Yet, solar capacity seeking grid access was more than three times wind at 77GW.

There were also 18GW of large battery projects in the queue that are largely being developed as solar-plus-storage systems to help with capacity firming, control of ramp rates and power output firming.

Historically, about 20-25% of renewables projects in the queue get built due to factors such as competition from natural gas when prices are low, financing and off-take, and local transmission constraints.

Even so, wind additions in ERCOT should remain steady over the next four years or so as developers qualify their projects for federal tax credits that Congress extended last month and utilities trim their coal fleets. Any additional fiscal support that President-elect Joe Biden is promising to secure during his first year in office would provide the sector with additional support.

Wind

Wind whistles past coal on main Texas power grid to set new generation record