Gusts of wind -- Energy industry growing in the northwest part of Oklahoma

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://www.enidnews.com/news/progress/energy-industry-growing-in-the-northwest-part-of-oklahoma/article_bef218b0-531f-11e9-8026-93fad6d101bd.html

Gusts of wind
Energy industry growing in the northwest part of Oklahoma

Ryan Miller | Enid News & Eagle

ENID, Okla. — The wind industry continues to grow ever larger in Oklahoma every year, keeping Oklahoma consistently at the top of the list in renewable energy resources.

Oklahoma ranks third nationwide for installed wind capacity and second for total wind energy generation, according to OK Wind Power. There are 8,072 megawatts (MW) of installed wind capacity in the state, with 3,984 wind turbines and 47 wind projects online. Forty-four of those 47 projects have installed wind capacities greater than 10 MW.

In addition, there are another 1,800 MW of wind capacity in advanced development, according to OK Wind Power. There is $51 million in annual land lease payments so far and $20 billion invested since 2013.

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The Breckenridge Wind Energy Center, east of Enid, is a 98.1 MW plant with 57 turbines. It serves the Grand River Dam Authority as a customer and commenced commercial operations in September 2015. The second is the Armadillo Flats wind project, a 247.4 MW wind farm.

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[NNadir]

1. It figures. Lots of oil and gas drilling hellholes, like for instance, Denmark put wind lipstick...

...on their fossil fuel pig.

The capacity utilization of wind plants is typically 30% in windy areas; the Danish database shows its capacity utilization to be less than that, less than 30%.

So now we're singing wildly for what is effect a 30MW power plant, which might as well be nothing, since it will require a redundant fossil fuel plant, which is why the fossil fuel industry loves this oblivious cheering.

It's no threat to them.

[Finishline42]

2. And yet wind generated over 30% of the electricity in Oklahoma in 2017

And they keep building more wind farms.

And every time a utility uses wind power instead of a gas or coal fired plant the cost of the power from those fossil fueled plants goes up. And with every wind farm that gets brought online - the costs for the next one goes down.

BTW, there's a capacity utilization paradox with wind power. You can use smaller windmills that increase that 30% number but larger windmills will output more electricity. This is due to a simple fact and it's why most of those windmills in the Danish database get replaced. The fact is when you double the diameter of the blades you cube the output. This means there is a sweet spot with regards to size and utilization. Obviously you put the largest windmill in that you can.