TXU Plans Panhandle Wind Farm With Shell

TXU Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell want to build the world’s largest wind farm in the Panhandle, nearly doubling the amount of wind capacity in Texas.

The companies won’t say how much they’re spending on the 3,000-megawatt facility in Briscoe County, but average industry data show it could cost several billion dollars.

And the companies are considering installing novel technology that could do something almost unheard of in the industry: Generate electricity when the wind is blowing and store it for later.

"I want to say something nice for TXU for a change, and Shell," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, head of the Texas office of consumer advocate Public Citizen.

"They get a big thumbs up on this project, and we wish other companies would follow their lead," said Mr. Smith, who led much of the public protest against TXU’s plans to build coal-fired power plants.

The whole project was inspired by a Public Utility Commission plan to build transmission lines to bring wind power from specified zones in West Texas to the more populous areas of the state, and the project depends on a favorable outcome to the PUC’s plan.

And it marks TXU’s first investment in a wind farm, though the company buys a lot of electricity from wind farms.

The company’s wholesale power unit, Luminant, and Shell WindEnergy Inc. announced Friday an exclusive deal to develop renewable energy facilities in Texas, including the Briscoe County plant.

The plant would be comprised of at least 1,000 turbines. The average cost of a wind turbine is about $1.5 million per megawatt, according to Mike Sloan of the Wind Coalition industry group. That would put the cost of the Briscoe County plant at a few billion dollars.

Luminant would own one-third of the Briscoe County wind farm, and Shell would own two-thirds, said Ray Harris, vice president of renewables for Luminant. The companies would split business development activities 50-50. Eventually, Luminant would increase its ownership of the facility so that the two companies hold equal shares, he said.

Mr. Harris said he intends for Luminant to develop renewable plants outside of Texas on its own.

Details of the Briscoe County wind farm depend largely on how state electricity regulators designate so-called Competitive Renewable Energy Zones, and when the transmission lines go up. The Public Utility Commission will soon set zone boundaries and call for transmission lines.

Only when those power lines are in place can the Shell/TXU wind farm begin producing juice. That could happen around 2011 or 2012, said Mark Wilby, a senior business development manager with Shell.

"We don’t want to see a cap on project sizes that are being proposed," Mr. Wilby said, and added he also doesn’t want the commission to limit the amount of transmission capacity to a zone.

The developers also plan to include technology that can store electricity, improving the reliability of the wind plant.

An important drawback of wind turbines is they turn off when the wind stops blowing, which tends to happen in the afternoon, just as demand for power peaks.

The plant would use wind power at night to compress air into an underground storage site. Compressed air would be used during times of peak demand to run a natural gas plant.

Mr. Wilby said natural gas plants typically use fuel to run an air compressor. The air is released and heated with natural gas to run turbines that generate electricity.

Using wind to compress the air cuts in half the amount of fuel needed to operate the plant, Mr. Wilby said.

The wind-compressor technology is in operation elsewhere in the U.S., he said, but the Briscoe County plant would mark the first time Shell tries the process.