The AWEA Blog: Into the Wind


Fact check: Bryce whiffs on wind power and Texas heat wave

Posted: 2011-08-12 Michael Goggin, AWEA Manager-Transmission Policy

Talk about ingratitude: Robert Bryce, who lives in Texas, attacks wind power, which helped protect him from rolling blackouts last week, in a new National Review article.

Mr. Bryce may want to check in with the company that operates the Texas utility system to get his facts straight before he writes his next article. In fact, the Texas system operator, ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), has been very clear that wind energy was the crucial factor keeping the lights and AC on for hundreds of thousands of Texans during last week's power shortages:

"Doggett [Trip Doggett, ERCOT CEO] said Monday that recently installed coastal wind farms — as opposed to the larger West Texas wind generation — provided crucial power at just the right time."

So what did cause last week's power shortage? It turns out that unexpected failures at around 20 fossil-fired power plants cut approximately 5-7% of the generating capacity the grid operator had been planning to use:

Folks in Texas may remember that a similar event occurred back in February, when around 80 mostly fossil-fired power plants experienced unexpected outages due to cold weather, which caused the lights and heat to go out for millions of Texans. Luckily wind energy output was there to save the day, keeping the lights on for around a million Texas households. If Mr. Bryce weren't on the payroll of the Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries-funded Manhattan Institute, he might have shown more thanks for wind energy keeping his lights on twice now in recent months.

Based on this recent history, Mr. Bryce's prescription for using more fossil-fired power plants instead of wind would have actually made Texas's power system less reliable. For those keeping score for reliability, wind energy is currently beating fossil fuel energy 2-0.

More reading:

Texas heat wave and utility integration:
After a scorching week, wind power lessons from the Texas heat wave, August 11, 2011
Wind helps meet new Texas record for electricity demand, August 4, 2011

As Texas utility system is stressed, wind generation shows up on schedule, August 3, 2011

Wind energy helps save day, February 4, 2011

How Wind Energy Is Reliably Integrated on the Grid, fact sheet

 

Robert Bryce:
Robert Bryce, King of the NIMBYs, August 10, 2011
Fact check: Bryce out to lunch with latest anti-wind broadside, August 3, 2011
Fact check: Bryce, Bentek miss on emissions, July 20, 2011
Fact check: Bryce stumbles on land use, sound, steel, benefits, June 8, 2011
Fact check: Bryce continues cherry-picking crusade in National Review, May 18, 2011
Fact check: Bryce omits mention of fossil fuel subsidies, December 14, 2010
Fact check: Robert Bryce misleads with WSJ op-ed, December 23, 2010
Bryce overlooks another convenient truth, December 14, 2010
Robert Bryce runs afoul of another reviewer, September 14, 2010
Mythbusting fact: Yes, wind does reduce emissions, August 27, 2010
Michael Goggin's review of Bryce's "Power Hungry," July 2, 2010

 


3 responses

  1. Michael February 7, 2012 08:41PM
    Your analysis is laughable. Texas ratepayers spent $10B on wind turbines and associated transmission capacity. If $2B had been invested in coal or natual gas power plants instead, there would not have been any blackout conditions. The large investment in wind power plants prevented investment in more reliable power generation. The diversion of investment dollars from baseload power plants to non base load (wind) is the cause of blackout conditions. Texas ratepayers could have saved perhaps $8B and obtained a more reliable grid if investment had flowed to baseload power plants instead of politically correct wind turbines.
  2. Dean October 19, 2011 11:55AM
    I think money will be the underlying determiner of attention and production of energy. Green energy technology still needs to be developed to be a viable source. I believe it will go mainstream when the cost to produce the energy is at least parallel to the petroleum industry. We have a ways to go.
  3. Paul Chamberlain August 28, 2011 11:08AM
    So which of Robert Bryces' facts were wrong? It seems strange that people say that that 5-7% under capacity for for fossil fuels is a failure but 82% under capacity for wind is a success. Texas would have been much better off if it had installed 10 GW of gas fired plants instead of the wind turbines.

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