Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money
In a windsurfers’ paradise, turbines capture gusts that pick up at exactly the right time - or the wrong time, if you're trying to sell natural gas.
By
Ryan Collins, Bloomberg News
June 20, 2017, 4:00 AM CDT
From
As attractive a renewable-energy concept as wind power is, it’s plagued by a fundamental flaw. It blows the most in the dead of night, precisely when there’s the least demand for electricity. That’s true for just about every wind-blown spot across the U.S., from the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains in California to the coastal plains of North Carolina.
And then there’s South Texas.
It is to wind, engineers have discovered in recent years, a bit like what Napa Valley is to wine and Georgia is to peaches. For not only does the state’s Gulf Coast generate strong evening gusts, but it also blows fiercely in the middle of the day, just as electricity consumption is peaking.
It’s the result of something called convection currents—a phenomenon caused by the gap between the temperature on the water and land—and it’s allowing wind farms owned by Apex Clean Energy Inc. and Avangrid Inc. to tap into the midday spike in electricity prices that comes as air conditioners start to hum.
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