Building Out Our Power Grid Means No More Curtailments for Wind Power

There are many reasons (eleven to be precise) that I believe the migration to renewable energy is happening far faster than most people understand.  Thus, the name of my current book project: “Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose.”

In particular, I see many disparate ingredients coming together simultaneously that are making clean energy, wind in particular, extremely inexpensive.  Of course, there is a barrier that serves to limit the amount of wind power we can integrate into our grid mix: variability—the wind speed in any given place varies greatly over the course of a day.  We’re closing in on 5% wind in our overall grid-mix here in the U.S.  But what if we want to make that 50%?  We either have to store the energy, which is expensive, or we have to get better at transmitting it to a point of load.

We’re making great strides in both these areas.  In particular, I suggest this article in RenewableEnergyWorld, which describes how “wind curtailments in Texas have dropped steadily and substantially since 2011 thanks mostly to the state’s completion of 3,500 miles of transmission lines as part of the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones program.”

We’re getting there.