Texas has the most wind power in the country, but the wind does not blow during the summer. Ercot said it got about 2,000 MW from wind during the peak hour on Wednesday. Those wind farms can produce about 9,000 MW when all turbines are spinning.
Reuters, here.
Wind generating capacity in Texas today is in the neighborhood of 35,000 megawatts, but only about 7,770 megawatts of that would be available under similar summer circumstances, with much less coal generating capacity available today than in 2011 to fill the breach:
Because of the increase in wind power and the retirement of almost 6,000 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity, coal-fired power plants supplied 18% of state generation in 2021, down from a 36% share in 2011.
And as a result Texas now gets to listen to this:
