Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
for raising stock, and for providing water to supply cities. By the 1880's, large windmills
called Eclipses (5.4m in diameter) and water tanks were located every thirty miles along
the railway tracks to service steam locomotives. Texas became the largest windmill state
in the country, with ranchers installing windmills to pump water for livestock, and town
residents built turbines to provide drinking water. Midland Texas, now famous as the center
of oil production, was known as “Windmill Town,” as almost every house had a wooden
tower with a spinning rotor on its property, and by the early 1900's roughly 50 percent of
about the wind boom in Texas, Galbraith and Price write: “On the desolate plains, the
windmill had become a beacon of civilization” (p. 16). The powerful three million-acre
(12,000 km
2
) XIT ranch installed more than 300 windmills and King Ranch more than 200
in the 1930's allowed West Texas ranchers to replace windmills with electric pumps, and
the dominant panorama of cattle clustered around a spinning windmill faded. In addition
to water, Texas' windmills were also used to pump Texan oil and played an important part
in early industrial development. As electricity became widely accessible, windmills for
pumping water and oil were replaced by more easily maintained and less costly electric
pumps.
Texans began making electricity from wind in the early 1980's. Texas has strong wind
resources; an ERCOT study estimates that potential wind resources in-state are more than
100 GW of wind with a 35 percent capacity factor and 35 GW of wind with a 40 percent
capacity factor (Lasher
2008
).
Texans have tinkered with windmills since the late 1800's on the ranch and they have
actively participated in the development of the new generation of wind turbines and the
rapid growth in wind power. In 1981, Michael Osborne installed five turbines in Pampa,
Texas, making it the second wind farm in the United States (the first was in southern
New Hampshire; Galbraith and Price
2013
). Federal policies provided crucial incentives
to develop the first Texas wind farm; PURPA Section 210 meant that Osborne could sell
the electricity produced by his turbines and the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) paid
Osborne $0.27 for each kilowatt hour his wind turbines produced. These policies were,
however, insufficient to make these early wind farms economically viable, because the
incentives only covered about half of the costs. After less than five years, lightning damage
to the gear boxes forced Texas' first commercial wind farm to close.
In spite of the strong wind resources, the federal PTC, and access to the grid, these
factors were not sufficient to promote wind development in Texas over the next two
decades. Rather, the climate for wind development became favorable through shifts in the
state-level electricity production and state policy advocates. Policy was one key driver.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search