Wind still rules in Texas

Texas is one of the nation's renewable energy leaders and leads the nation in wind energy development. Texas capital Austin is about to meet its goal of getting 35% of its energy from renewables, four years before the 2020 target date.

Austin Energy looks set to sign contracts for two large-scale wind farms that would bring 570 megawatts (MW) of clean, renewable energy from the Gulf coast. The City of Austin will sign 25-year power purchase agreements to receive the energy at a cost of $1.4 billion.

Wind energy has competitive prices in state of Texas. It is estimated that the cost for the wind energy is between 2.3 cents to 3.3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), which is enough to beat the currently highly popular natural gas that stands at around 4 cents.

Austin Energy is not focused solelly on wind as it also has a 30 MW solar plant which produces electricity for 16.5 cents per kWh and plans to build out its solar portfolio to at least 200 MW by 2020. The company also buys energy from the largest biomass power plant in the nation, the 100 megawatt Nacogdoches Generating Facility.

As already said above Texas is the nations's wind energy leader. The state wind power capacity has increased by 18% last year, adding over 1800 MW for a total of 12.2 gigawatts across more than 40 different wind energy projects. Wind energy now supplies more than 9% of all electricity generated in the state.

A new $6.8 billion investment in new transmission lines will play major part in Texas wind energy development. With it, the state of Texas will be able to deliver more clean electricity to its cities.