Chaotic Wind Power Output Leaves Power-Starved Texans Praying To Wind Gods

Banking on the wind for your daily power needs is prone to disappoint. From the moment human beings harnessed thermal energy the path of industrial and modern civilisation was set. No more begging for beneficial breezes to spin that mill. Power could be had as and when we needed it, not when mother nature felt inclined to provide it.

Then came self-serving, rent-seeking crony capitalists – backed by an ideologically driven cult – who hijacked energy policy, returning us to an age of superstition and wishful thinking.

What stands out in the first piece by Bill Peacock is not the perfectly predictable collapses in wind and solar output, it’s the argument put forward by a Reuter’s columnist that Texas’ troubles will soon be overcome by “greater wind speeds” which, he reckons, will provide a “major boost” to Texan power supplies and avert any further power scares during hot weather.

Now, it is altogether possible that the correspondent in question is capable of dialling up wind speeds to suit. But STT is inclined to reserve judgement on that score, given the fickle nature of meteorology and humanity’s well-established inability to control it.

Wind Fails Texas Again
Master Resource
Bill Peacock
26 June 2023

“Texas’ problem with wind and solar generation has been growing for years. In 2022, wind farms generated 25% of the electricity used in ERCOT. Solar farms generated 5.65%. Ten years earlier, wind’s market share was 12.25% and solar’s 0.03%. This has placed a great strain on the grid because neither of these generation sources can be counted on when needed.

Source: Reuters

Reuters recently ran a story highlighting wind generation’s failure through the early months of 2023:

The Texas power grid operator urged homes and businesses to conserve electricity on Tuesday as the first major heat wave of the season spurs residents to crank power-hungry air conditioners. Power prices for Tuesday topped $2,500 per megawatt hour (MWh) in the state’s day-ahead market on expectations that demand would reach record levels later in the day, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

In addition to the heavy demand for cooling, the Texas grid is also under strain from a recent dip in power generation from wind sources, which if sustained may deprive the ERCOT system of a key source of clean power when it is needed most. Wind power is Texas’ second largest source of electricity behind natural gas, so any prolonged drop in wind generation may leave the ERCOT system under strain just as the peak demand season kicks off.

Reuter’s columnist Gavin Maguire continues:

In May, the total amount of wind power generated in the ERCOT system was just under 310,000 megawatts (MW), which is down 40% from the nearly 520,000 MW generated in May 2022…. In the first 19 days of June, around 185,000 MW of wind power was generated, which is down 45% from the 336,000 MW generated in the same period in 2022.

A look at a recent day confirms the problems with wind generation. Wind peaked at 15,131 MW at 1:19 a.m. on Wednesday, June 21, and dropped throughout most of the rest of the day. When Austin temperatures peaked at 102 degrees around noon, wind generation was down to 7,016 MW on its way toward its low of 5,947 at 2:09 p.m. It did not reach 15,000+ MW again until 7:44, when the temperature in Austin had dropped to 73 degrees.

Source: ERCOT

Texas’s problem with wind and solar generation has been growing for years. In 2022, wind farms generated 25% of the electricity used in ERCOT. Solar farms generated 5.65%. Ten years earlier, wind’s market share was 12.25% and solar’s 0.03%. This has placed a great strain on the grid because neither of these generation sources can be counted on when needed.

Wind’s market share is far higher in temperate months than in the hot summer months or the cold winter months when loads are heavy and generation is needed. In March, April, May, October, and November, wind’s market share is 31.7%. In the winter months of December, January, and February, wind’s market share drops to 25.7%. In the summer months of June, July, August, and September, wind’s market share plummets to 18.1%.

Source: ERCOT; Author’s Calculations

Solar has been proclaimed to be the savior of the electric grid because it tends to generate more electricity when it is the hottest. While that is sometimes the case, Texas has already experienced scenarios when solar failed to produce because clouds covered solar panels in West Texas while the rest of Texas was simmering in the summer heat. In addition, as expected solar generation drops precipitously during the winter. Its market share in December is almost half of what it is in June and July.

Reuter’s claims that more wind capacity will solve wind’s intermittency problem:

A rebound in wind generation levels due to new capacity and greater wind speeds will provide a major boost to ERCOT resilience and may enable the Texas grid to avert any further power scares from upcoming heat waves.

It is unclear why Reuter’s believes that wind speeds will magically pick up in the future and solve wind generation’s problems–perhaps this is the result of global warming? In any case, more wind capacity will exacerbate the problem of wind’s intermittency. The simple truth is that the more Texas relies on wind generation, the less reliable the Texas electric grid will be; the more Texans need electricity to protect themselves from weather extremes and keep their lights on the less electricity wind and solar will provide.

One last thing. Beyond the problems of intermittency and unreliability, wind and solar generation is vastly more expensive than natural gas, coal, and nuclear generation. The 2023 cost in Texas of renewable subsidies and protecting the grid from renewables will exceed $2.7 billion (it was 2.04 billion in 2021).

The Texas Legislature this session did nothing to address Texas’ decades long support of wind and solar through subsidies and benefits. Instead, it doubled down on subsidies by authorizing $8.9 billion of subsidies and loans to traditional thermal generation. But Texas, or more accurately, Texas taxpayers, can’t buy their way out of the problems caused by renewables. The only way out is to end subsidies for all generators and let market participants use market prices to figure out what energy sources best meet our needs.
Master Resource

Correct, CBS News Texas, Wind Energy Struggles in Heat (And Other Conditions)
Climate Realism
Linnea Leuken
3 July 2023

CBS News Texas posted an article to their website describing how wind turbines struggle to produce enough electricity during heat waves, due to the natural effect of lower wind speeds during these events. This is true, and it highlights one of the biggest problems renewable sources face when they are supposed to make up a greater and greater share of electricity production. That is, they are highly weather dependent and often fail under unideal conditions.

The article, “Low wind could hamper wind turbine production in Texas,” explains that the coming hot summer days in Texas will likely be a problem for electricity generation, as “energy experts say the state’s wind turbines may not produce as much power because of low wind forecasts. “

Heat domes and heat waves in general are known for causing a drop in wind speeds, and the same thing happened last year in Texas under similar weather conditions, during which wind turbines dropped to operating at just 8 percent of capacity.

The expert CBS interviewed for the post, Dr. Todd Griffith of the Wind Energy Center at UT Dallas admitted that when the wind doesn’t blow, “we need to compensate for that with these other sources…namely, natural gas and coal sources and nuclear.”

This is true, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense to intentionally add unreliable electricity generation to the grid which threaten consumers with power shortages in the first place.

In the case of Texas, these failures tend happen during the highest electricity demand time of year, summer, when air conditioning is needed most.

Indeed, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a weather watch because of anticipated heat, and while they said that grid conditions are expected to be “normal” they did caution that demand is expected to rise and Texans may want to voluntarily reduce electricity use, “if safe to do so.”

Solar power also suffers under high temperatures. Temperatures over 25°C begin to cause a problem for solar panels, as photovoltaic cells that are overheated experience a voltage drop, which leads to a decline in power output, as detailed in Energy at a Glance: Solar Power Reliability and Costs. Great Britain has experienced that this year already, and had to ramp up coal burning for electricity in order to make up for the loss of solar generated electricity on their grid amid a relatively modest heat wave.

Climate Realism has often covered the issues surrounding wind and solar in particular, such as in these posts here, here, and here, where it is pointed out that not only do these sources struggle in extreme heat, but cold as well, as demonstrated during the heavy freeze in Texas during February of 2021. They also tend to generate more environmentally hazardous waste than proponents are willing to admit, and even in normal conditions, do not generate as much electricity (or revenue) as advertised.

Because sources like wind are proving themselves to be less reliable than traditional means of electricity generation, grid operators nationwide are beginning to warn consumers and policymakers that moving too quickly to shut down reliable baseload power like coal, nuclear, hydro, and natural gas in favor of wind and solar will result in rolling blackouts and brownouts.

Recently, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that he thinks “we’re heading for potentially very dire consequences, potentially catastrophic consequences in the United States in terms of the reliability of our grid, and I think that the basic reason is that we’re facing a shortfall of power supply[.]”

It makes sense, as the U.S. population continues to grow, and as climate alarmist policymakers push for total electrification of homes and even transportation, more power is going to be needed. Instead of merely adding additional capacity in the form of renewables, though, traditional sources are being decommissioned in order to reach “net-zero,” often despite the fact that no renewable is able to make up for the power generation loss.

While CBS may not have directly made the connection between wind turbine failures and mass electrification and decommissioning of reliable power sources, they have left a positive bread crumb in the form of educating readers about the struggles of wind turbines in heat waves, a natural and recurring part of Texas’ climate. Hopefully readers will take the logical trail from there, and realize that there will be serious problems with future expansion of renewables.
Climate Realism