The cost of building thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines to bring West Texas wind power to major markets has risen nearly 40 percent from original estimates, according to a state report.
When approved by the Public Utility Commission in 2008, the plan to build lines to support up to 18,500 megawatts of West Texas wind power was tagged at $4.9 billion dollars.
A quarterly update now puts the cost at $6.8 billion, a 38 percent increase.
Early estimates said the cost of the new lines would raise Texans’ monthly power bills by about $4, but the higher price tag will push that fee closer to $5. Companies building the lines have not yet filed with state officials to begin recouping the costs, but that process may start later this year, said Public Utility Commission spokesman Terry Hadley.
The average wind speed in Austin this month has been 5 MPH.
I,m shocked….not
It’ll cost a fortune to build lines of that capacity and the wind farms will seldom use more than 20%.
Invest in power line construction companies. It’s most likely even more profitable than the windmill subsidies themselves.
Looks like they need to run those power lines up into Kansas where the wind blows seemingly non-stop. I’ll never understand why Texas built their wind farms in Texas.
lol, last month, in the midst of that infernal drought, on the day our little electric company sold the most electricity evuh! The wind didn’t blow. We’ve thousands of those whirlygigs planted across our state, no wind energy was available.
BTW, if Texas had planted their whirlygigs and pinwheels in Kansas, the cost for the power lines would be about double, and the signal degradation (line loss) would be about double, too.
The morons thought aluminum, copper, and steel prices would remain static. Or, at least they pretended to think that.
The duplicity is something everyone has to pay for. I hope the earthday birthday people are happy. They just caused more strip mining to be financed. And, they managed to create more jobs………in China.
Dr. Hayhoe? Are you happy yet? Or does more capital need to leave the U.S.?