The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is a nonprofit public utility created in November 1934 by the Texas Legislature. LCRA's mission is to enhance the lives of the Texans it serves through water stewardship, energy and community service. LCRA provides public power, manages the lower Colorado River, builds and operates transmission lines, owns public parks, and offers community services.
Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center is a large wind farm with 735.5 megawatts (MW) of capacity. It consists of 291 GE 1.5-megawatt wind turbines and 139 Siemens 2.3-megawatt wind turbines spread over nearly 47,000 acres (19,000 ha) of land in Taylor and Nolan County, Texas. At the time of its completion in 2006, it was the largest wind farm in the world.
The Trent Wind Farm, also known as the Trent Mesa Wind Project, is a 150 megawatt wind power station located between Abilene and Sweetwater in West Texas. The wind farm consists of 100 GE wind turbines each rated at 1.5 megawatts. American Electric Power owns the Trent Wind Farm and TXU Energy purchases the electricity produced under a long-term agreement.
Wind power in Texas, a portion of total energy in Texas, consists of over 150 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 30,000 MW. If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world: The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power. ERCOT set a new wind output record of nearly 19.7 GW at 7:19 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, January 21, 2019.
Wind power in California had initiative and early development during Governor Jerry Brown's first two terms in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The state's wind power capacity has grown by nearly 350% since 2001, when it was less than 1,700 MW. In 2016, wind energy supplied about 6.9% of California's total electricity needs, or enough to power more than 1.3 million households. Most of California's wind generation is found in the Tehachapi area of Kern County, California, with some large projects in Solano, Contra Costa and Riverside counties as well. California is among the states with the largest amount of installed wind power capacity. In recent years, California has lagged behind other states when it comes to the installation of wind power. It was ranked 4th overall for wind power electrical generation at the end of 2016 behind Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma. As of 2019, California had 5,973 megawatts (MW) of wind power generating capacity installed.
The Roscoe Wind Farm near Roscoe, Texas is one of the world's largest-capacity wind farms. With 627 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 781.5 MW, owned and operated by RWE. At the time of its completion in 2009, it was the largest wind farm in the world, surpassing the nearby 735.5-megawatt Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center. In 2012, it was overtaken by California's 1,020-megawatt Alta Wind Energy Center.
The Sweetwater Wind Farm is a 585.3-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Nolan County, Texas. The facility includes 392 wind turbines and was fully commissioned by 2007. The electricity is being sold to Austin Energy and to CPS Energy of San Antonio.
Making up over 55% of the state's generated electricity in 2021, wind power is the largest source of electricity generation in Iowa. In 2020, over 34 billion kWh of electrical energy was generated by wind power. As of Q3 2020, Iowa has over 10,951 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity with 5,590 wind turbines, ranking 2nd and 3rd in the nation below Texas respectively.
Biglow Canyon Wind Farm is an electricity generating wind farm facility in Sherman County, Oregon, United States. It is owned by Portland, Oregon-based Portland General Electric and began operations in 2007. With the completion of phase 3 of the project it has a generating capacity of 450 megawatts. It is located roughly five miles (8 km) northeast of Wasco, Oregon, and about ten miles (16 km) southeast of Rufus, Oregon. Biglow Canyon Wind Farm covers 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) in the Columbia River Gorge.
Burton Wold Wind Farm is a wind farm located near Burton Latimer in the English county of Northamptonshire, UK. The Wind Farm was developed by Your Energy Ltd, is owned by Mistral Windfarms and operated by Engineering Renewables Ltd. E.ON UK is buying the electricity output of the project under a long-term power purchase agreement. The farm is spread over three hectares. It has an installed capacity of 20 MW and generate on average around 40,000,000 units of electricity annually.
The Shepherds Flat Wind Farm is an 845 megawatt (MW) wind farm in the eastern part of U.S. state of Oregon, near Arlington, in both Gilliam and Morrow counties. Groundbreaking occurred in 2009, and it officially opened in September 2012. The wind farm was built by Caithness Energy using General Electric GE2.5XL 2.5 MW wind turbines, and it supplies electricity to Southern California Edison. The wind farm is estimated to have an economic impact of $16 million annually for Oregon. It is one of the largest land-based wind farms in the world.
Delaware Mountain Wind Farm is a wind farm located in the Delaware Mountains of Culberson County, Texas. The farm consists of thirty-eight EWC Zond Z-48 750 kilowatt wind turbines that produce up to 28.5 megawatts of electricity. All electricity produced by the project is purchased by the Lower Colorado River Authority. The project was completed in 1999 by Orion Energy LLC and National Wind Power. NextEra Energy Resources now owns and operates the wind farm. As a result of damage to the wind farm and transmission infrastructure by an ice storm in November 2013, the Delaware Mountain Wind Farm and the adjacent Wind Power Partners 94 wind farm have been off-line. NextEra has informed the ERCOT, Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that it is dismantling the farms and "... they will be decommissioned and retired on 7 August 2014."
The 605.2 megawatt (MW) Peñascal Wind Farm project is located south of Baffin Bay in Kenedy County, Texas and was constructed in three phases by Iberdrola and Mortenson Construction. It became Iberdrola's largest renewable energy facility in the world after completion of the second phase in 2010.
In 2016, Arizona had 268 megawatts (MW) of wind powered electricity generating capacity, producing 0.5% of in-state generated electricity.
In the U.S. State of Kansas, wind power is the largest source of electricity, generating over 41% of the state's electricity in 2019. Kansas has a high potential capacity for wind power, second behind Texas. The most recent estimates (2012) are that Kansas has a potential for 952 GW of wind power capacity yet had only about 5.6 GW installed by year end 2018. Kansas could generate 3,102 TW·h of electricity each year, which represents over 75% of all the electricity generated in the United States in 2011. This electricity could be worth $290 billion per year.
The US state of Colorado has vast wind energy resources and the installed electricity capacity and generation from wind power in Colorado has been growing significantly in recent years. The growth has been sustained due to a combination of falling costs, continuing federal incentives, and the state's aggressive renewable portfolio standard that requires 30% of the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.
The Papalote Creek Wind Farm near Taft, Texas in San Patricio County is an array of 196 wind turbines that can produce 380 megawatts (MW) of power, enough to serve approximately 114,000 homes. The wind farm was built and is operated by E.ON Climate and Renewables North America.
The state of South Dakota is a leader in the U.S. in wind power generation with over 30% of the state's electricity generation coming from wind in 2017. In 2016, South Dakota had 583 turbines with a total capacity of 977 megawatts (MW) of wind generation capacity. In 2019, the capacity increased to 1525 MW.
The U.S. State of Oklahoma has high potential capacity for wind power in the western half of the state. In 2017, Oklahoma's installed wind generation capacity was almost 7,500 megawatts, supplying almost a third of the state's generated electricity.
The South Plains Wind Farm, is located between Floydada, Texas and South Plains, Texas, on the high plains of the Llano Estacado in Floyd County. Completed in 2016, the wind farm was constructed in two phases that have a total generating capacity of 500.3 megawatts (MW).
