Wind power in Oklahoma explained

The U.S. State of Oklahoma has high potential capacity for wind power in the western half of the state. In 2021, Oklahoma's installed wind generation capacity was almost 10,500 megawatts, supplying over 40% of the state's generated electricity and 85% of Oklahoma's total generating capacity from all renewable resources.[1]

Growth

Oklahoma Wind Generation by Year
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PlotData= color:skyblue width:20 bar:2003 from:start till:54 text:54 bar:2004 from:start till:574 text:574 bar:2005 from:start till:847 text:847 bar:2006 from:start till:1712 text:1,712 bar:2007 from:start till:1849 text:1,849 bar:2008 from:start till:2359 text:2,359 bar:2009 from:start till:2697 text:2,697 bar:2010 from:start till:3807 text:3,807 bar:2011 from:start till:5606 text:5,606 bar:2012 from:start till:8159 text:8,159 bar:2013 from:start till:11252 text:11,252 bar:2014 from:start till:11937 text:11,937 bar:2015 from:start till:14031 text:14,031 bar:2016 from:start till:20069 text:20,069 bar:2017 from:start till:23599 text:23,599 bar:2018 from:start till:27338 text:27,338 bar:2019 from:start till:29007 text:29,007 bar:2020 from:start till:29417 text:29,417 bar:2021 from:start till:33389 text:33,389 bar:2022 from:start till:37418 text:37,418

Million kilowatt-hours of electricity[2]
Oklahoma Wind Capacity by Year
ImageSize = width:280 height:auto barincrement:21PlotArea = left:36 bottom:20 top:10 right:10AlignBars = justifyPeriod = from:0 till:11000TimeAxis = orientation:horizontalScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2000 start:0

PlotData= color:lavender width:21 bar:2002 from:start till:0 text:0 bar:2003 from:start till:176.3 text:176.3 bar:2004 from:start till:176.3 text:176.3 bar:2005 from:start till:474.5 text:474.5 bar:2006 from:start till:534.5 text:534.5 bar:2007 from:start till:689 text:689 bar:2008 from:start till:708.1 text:708.1 bar:2009 from:start till:1031.2 text:1,031.2 bar:2010 from:start till:1481.8 text:1,481.8 bar:2011 from:start till:2007 text:2,007 bar:2012 from:start till:3134 text:3,134 bar:2013 from:start till:3134 text:3,134 bar:2014 from:start till:3782 text:3,782 bar:2015 from:start till:5184 text:5,184 bar:2016 from:start till:6645 text:6,645 bar:2017 from:start till:7495 text:7,495 bar:2018 from:start till:8072 text:8,072 bar:2019 from:start till:8172 text:8,172 bar:2020 from:start till:9048 text:9,048 bar:2021 from:start till:10994 text:10,994

Megawatts of Generation Capacity[3] [4] [5]

Some of the wind farms in Oklahoma include:

The $3.5 billion, 800 mile, Plains & Eastern Clean Line transmission line was approved in 2012, which will when completed in 2017 have the capacity to deliver 7,000 MW of wind power. As of April, 2017, Clean Line Energy Partners did not have any binding contracts to provide electricity to an electric utility. The only tentative, nonbinding, agreement Clean Line was able to obtain was for 50 MW of capacity.

In 2010 Oklahoma adopted a goal of generating 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015.[7] Wind power accounted for 18.4% of the electricity generated in Oklahoma during 2015.[8] At the end of 2015, Oklahoma's installed wind generation capacity was 5,184 MW.[9] During 2017, wind power accounted for 31.9% of the electricity generated in Oklahoma,and installed capacity at the end of 2017 was 7,495 MW, the state being second in terms of installed capacity.[10]

In 2017, Invenergy and GE announced plans for the $4.5 billion, 2,000 MW Wind Catcher (a/k/a Windcatcher) project on a 300,000-acre site in Cimarron and Texas counties in the Oklahoma Panhandle, which would have been among the world's largest wind farms when completed in 2020.[11] [12] American Electric Power ("AEP") utility subsidiaries Public Service Company of Oklahoma ("PSO") and Southwestern Electric Power Co. ("SWEPCO") asked utility regulators in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma to approve plans to purchase the wind farm from Invenergy upon completion of construction. However, the project ran into opposition and was finally cancelled in July 2018.

PSO was approved in early 2020 by regulators in Oklahoma as well as Arkansas to own a 45.5% share of a massive 1,485 megawatt wind project known as the North Central Energy Facilities, with SWEPCO owning the rest.[13] The project includes three wind farms covering areas in Alfalfa, Blaine, Custer, Kingfisher, Garfield, Major and Woods counties of Oklahoma. Hearings still need to be held in Texas and Louisiana. While the abandoned Wind Catcher plan envisioned a new 765-kilovolt transmission line, which would have run hundreds of miles in Oklahoma, the North Central facilities are near an existing PSO/SWEPCO transmission system.[14] Also, the project is said to be scalable, so that states which approve the project would have the ability to increase the number of megawatts allocated to them should another state reject the proposal, as long as a minimum of 810 MW is committed.

The Traverse Wind Energy Center, located north of Weatherford came online in 2022, with a capacity of 999 MW. It was built by Invenergy and contracted by American Electric Power. It is the second-largest wind project in the United States, behind the Alta Wind Energy Center in California.[15] [16] [17]

Potential

Being centrally located, the western half of Oklahoma is in America's wind corridor, which stretches from Canada into North Dakota and Montana, south into west Texas, where the vast majority of the country's best on-shore wind resources are located.[18] Oklahoma has the potential to install 517,000 MW of wind turbines, capable of generating 1,521,652 GWh each year. This is over one third of all the electricity generated in the United States in 2011.[19]

Economic benefits

Oklahoma's wind resources are the eighth best in the United States. The total number of direct and indirect jobs in the state from wind power development is estimated to be between 1,000 and 2,000.[20]

Oklahoma ended the half-cent tax credit for wind by July 2017. All zero-emission rebates were $60 million in the 2014 tax year.[21]

Wind generation

Oklahoma Wind Generation in 2016
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TextData = pos:(5,240) textcolor:black fontsize:M text:GWh pos:(175,25) textcolor:black fontsize:S text:Month

PlotData= color:skyblue width:20 bar:Jan from:start till:1423 bar:Feb from:start till:1763 bar:Mar from:start till:1990 bar:Apr from:start till:1728 bar:May from:start till:1701 bar:Jun from:start till:1380 bar:Jul from:start till:1725 bar:Aug from:start till:1234 bar:Sept from:start till:1506 bar:Oct from:start till:2062 bar:Nov from:start till:1719 bar:Dec from:start till:1838

Oklahoma Wind Generation (GWh, Million kWh)
YearTotalJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSeptOctNovDec
2003 54 54
2004 574 45 46 54 49 77 38 39 38 48 41 41 58
2005 847 35 36 54 98 78 92 69 52 76 74 80 103
2006 1,712 171 130 164 175 141 123 125 95 109 153 165 161
2007 1,849 146 165 199 184 147 108 84 162 150 209 159 136
2008 2,359 227 175 220 237 228 197 171 101 143 204 209 247
2009 2,697 209 209 272 272 184 204 163 202 152 253 269 308
2010 3,807 232 187 398 407 302 365 262 261 311 299 408 375
2011 5,606 348 449 529 534 567 561 333 336 343 498 626 482
2012 8,159 701 536 757 632 729 679 568 453 518 799 832 955
2013 11,252 886 828 1,109 1,127 1,069 1,007 772 681 769 1,125 1,044 835
2014 11,937 1,176 745 1,182 1,251 957 1,097 782 781 875 901 1,188 1,002
2015 14,031 1,053 1,080 936 1,227 1,136 1,110 1,136 955 1,311 1,060 1,587 1,442
2016 20,069 1,423 1,763 1,990 1,728 1,701 1,380 1,725 1,234 1,506 2,062 1,719 1,838
2017 23,599 1,943 2,080 2,445 2,300 1,898 1,949 1,463 978 1,843 2,562 2,037 2,101
2018 27,338 2,711 2,262 2,745 2,816 2,391 2,743 1,150 2,080 1,868 1,884 2,151 2,537
2019 29,007 2,384 2,009 2,431 2,757 2,420 2,005 2,149 2,013 2,633 3,134 2,446 2,626
2020 29,417 2,661 2,576 2,521 2,732 2,171 3,106 1,855 1,897 1,844 2,466 2,897 2,691
2021 33,389 2,773 2,025 3,592 3,319 2,921 2,306 1,845 2,632 2,780 2,941 2,922 3,333
2022 37,418 2,960 3,018 3,473 4,160 3,743 3,180 2,988 2,298 2,426 2,624 3,311 3,237
2023 37,731 3,515 3,572 4,038 3,699 2,474 2,242 2,882 2,576 2,817 3,535 2,940 3,441
2024 23,846 2,759 3,721 3,780 3,962 3,119 3,474 3,031
|}Source:[22] [23]

In 2017, Oklahoma's installed wind generation capacity was almost 7,500 megawatts, supplying almost a third of the state's generated electricity.[10]

In 2019, 53.5% of the power production in Oklahoma was produced from natural gas and 34.6% from wind power.[24]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis .
  2. Web site: EIA - Electricity Data Browser, Table 1.14 . U.S. Department of Energy . June 30, 2018 .
  3. Web site: Wind Exchange: Installed Wind Capacity . U.S. Department of Energy . February 17, 2016 . June 30, 2018 .
  4. https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/321 WINDExchange: U.S. Installed and Potential Wind Power Capacity and Generation
  5. Web site: Market Report 2021 . American Clean Power Association. May 17, 2022 . May 22, 2022.
  6. Web site: Weatherford Wind Energy Center (USA). TheWindpower.net . April 2, 2020.
  7. Web site: Oklahoma Governor Approves Energy Security Act . May 28, 2010 . SolarIndustryMag.com.
  8. Web site: U.S. number one in the world in wind energy production. American Wind Energy Association. 7 April 2016.
  9. Web site: AWEA . American Wind Energy Association. 20 May 2016.
  10. Web site: Wind Energy in Oklahoma. American Wind Energy Association. 30 June 2018.
  11. Invenergy and GE Renewable Energy Announce America's Largest Wind Farm . July 26, 2017 . GE.
  12. Web site: Kelly Bostian, 'It feels good to breathe again': Local opponents respond to news of Wind Catcher project cancellation after failed Texas vote, July 27, 2018 . Tulsa World . September 26, 2019.
  13. Web site: State gives go-ahead to share of massive wind farm project. Tulsa World, Feb 23, 2020 . March 23, 2020.
  14. Web site: Coal-powered giant bets on wind. Will it work?. Edward Klump, E&E News, Thursday, February 6, 2020. April 2, 2020.
  15. Web site: Renewables account for most new U.S. electricity generating capacity in 2021. U.S. Energy Information Administration. January 11, 2021. March 28, 2021.
  16. Web site: American wind projects on the move. June 15, 2020. March 28, 2021.
  17. Web site: Morgan . Rhett . New wind farm for PSO customers comes online . Tulsa World . https://web.archive.org/web/20220422052343/https://tulsaworld.com/business/local/new-wind-farm-for-pso-customers-comes-online/article_35dcddf8-a925-11ec-bc74-8370ebce5fef.html . 22 April 2022 . en . live.
  18. Web site: 80 Meter Wind Map. National Renewable Energy Lab. Department of Energy. 12 May 2011.
  19. Web site: U.S. Renewable Energy Technical Potentials. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. U.S. Department of Energy. 2012-07-04. 14.
  20. Web site: State Wind Energy Statistics: Oklahoma. AWEA. 22 May 2014.
  21. Web site: Oklahoma governor signs bills to end wind incentive, airfield loophole. 18 April 2017. 18 April 2017.
  22. Web site: Electric Power Monthly Table 1.14.A.. EIA. Energy Information Administration. United States Department of Energy. July 27, 2012. 2022-12-20.
  23. Web site: Electricity Data Browser. EIA. Energy Information Administration. United States Department of Energy. 2018-07-30.
  24. Web site: Oklahoma Wind Farms Mapped. StateImpact Oklahoma Environment, Education, Energy, Health and Justice: Policy to People. Oklahoma Public Media Exchange. Joe Wertz. 2018-09-06. en.

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