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Austin Energy close to signing deal for coastal wind power

For much of the past decade, Austin has relied mostly on wind from West Texas to achieve renewable-energy goals, even as city officials warned that it mostly blows at night, when people need electricity the least.

Now Austin Energy officials say they are close to a deal to buy more wind that would overcome that shortcoming.

The city-owned utility is close to inking a pair of contracts to pay about $50 million a year — the final amount is still under negotiation — for electricity generated by two companies building large-scale wind farms along the Texas coast. Wind there tends to blow mostly during the afternoon and early evening, when the city needs it most, even in summer, according to utility officials examining the offer.

It would be Austin's first major energy purchase since the city adopted an aggressive plan 15 months ago to invest heavily in renewable energy. Assuming the City Council gives its thumbs up in August or early September, Austin would be part of a wind boom along the coast happening partly because turbine manufacturers are producing models with larger blades that are better able to harness the less intense winds blowing there.

At 4 cents a kilowatt hour — roughly what natural gas is now going for — the coastal wind is about as cheap an electricity source, renewable or otherwise, as Austin Energy officials say they could find. The deal will not raise rates, according to an Austin Energy analysis.

"It's a good market for wind right now," General Manager Larry Weis said. "I think when our customers hear what the cost is, they'll be really pleased with it."

The deals would take effect in 2013 and last 20 to 25 years. The names of the companies involved are not being released.

The two wind farms would provide a combined 291 megawatts of power, adding about 10 percent to the city's generating capacity.

Austin Energy had rejected several previous coastal-wind proposals because they were too expensive. But now both Austin and San Antonio's CPS Energy have deemed coastal wind cost-effective.

By way of comparison, the operators of the South Texas Project nuclear facility had approached Austin earlier this year about investing in an expansion of that facility. But NRG Energy's emissaries were floating a price around 8 cents per kilowatt hour. Austin Energy officials were skeptical, and the deal fell apart before negotiations could begin because one of the deal's backers, Tokyo Electric Power Company , owns the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that was hit by the tsunami earlier this year.

Champion News | Country trapped in heat wave – wind power ...

While the Obama stimulus program provided over $30 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, all the wind turbines in the Midwest are not providing any energy at this moment of greatest need. In fact they are actually using power from the grid, making it more difficult to power your air conditioner, not less.

This is just one of the scientific and engineering facts never made available to the public. Facts and science are incompatible with political correctness.

From North Dakota to Texas (the country’s biggest wind energy generator) and east to Ohio and beyond the nation is under a huge high-pressure system.

What does a high-pressure system mean? Little or no wind and therefore zero wind energy to relieve the fossil fuel and nuclear energy plants from some of the burden of electricity production.

Since the latest versions of these giant wind turbines require wind speeds of about 22 MPH before they generate any electricity this means they are actually taking energy from the grid to keep them selves running in standby mode. Wind turbines require energy to keep the turbines moving because of the metal fatigue that accompanies rotating devices that weigh over 40 tons and are 400 feet tall. Also lights, computers and an oil pump large enough to circulate the 500 gallons of oil contained in the wind turbine’s gearbox.

So the supposed savior of the country’s energy needs is a $30 billion bust, unavailable to the taxpayers when it is most needed.

Here’s a report on wind power in Texas during a 2010 heat wave.

Not only does wind power not work it costs about 100 times more in subsidies.

In a 2007 study the EIA (Energy Information Administration) determined wind subsidies were about 40 – 100 times the subsidies for fossil fuels or $23 for wind vs. .25 for NG.

So it cost taxpayers a lot more but is not available when really needed.

Promises of ending wind power’s subsidies go back to 1983.

In 1983, a study by Booz, Allen & Hamilton concluded:

The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by  the end of the decade  if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D.”

So in 1982 it was predicted subsidies for wind would end in 1989 yet they continue unabated.

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