The PUC estimates the state will need an additional 75,000 megawatts in the next 18 years as older, less-efficient plants are retired. Statewide, some 20-25 gas-powered plants are being planned, along with three coal plants, and two or three nuclear plants. Wind farms are being added, but they still only provide about 5 percent of the state's electrical needs. Even if it were all the proposed plants were to come onto the grid, Texas might still be paying more for electricity than other states, according to Terry Hadley, spokesman for the Public Utility Commission. "What sticks out is the fuel cost," he said. "Most plants in Texas use natural gas, and the price of natural gas is just soaring."

The blades of the wind turbines at Peñascal Wind Farm in Kenedy County are scheduled to start turning and producing power by December. And when they do, they'll send a welcome jolt to San Antonio. Oregon-based PPM Energy, the project's developer, began construction last fall and is doing roadwork and pouring foundations, said PPM spokeswoman Jan Johnson. The wind farm is expected to have 84 turbines capable of generating 2.4 megawatts a year each. ...The project has seen opposition. Most recently, the project was the subject of state and federal lawsuits by the Coastal Habitat Alliance, filed in December.

Wind turbines more than 300 feet tall might be added to the skyline along the inner harbor if the Port of Corpus Christi approves a land lease with Revolution Energy. The proposal, expected to come before commissioners as early as April, would make the port the first in the country with a wind generation project. Colorado-based Revolution Energy has been conducting feasibility studies on port property for the past year ...the study found favorable wind conditions, adequate existing capacity, no interference with existing airport or military flights and minimal impact to birds. ...Although more in-depth studies, which include more environmental studies, would be needed before determining the number of turbines, Hegedus anticipates no more than 17, each under 450 feet at the highest blade tip. Each tower would require about a quarter of an acre, Perez said.

"Wind needs a dance partner," says David Hawkins, principal engineer for renewable energy at the grid-running California Independent System Operator in Folsom, Calif. ...Shortages degrade reliability and push up prices. Wholesale power prices surged to $1,055 a megawatt hour in West Texas on Feb. 26 versus $299 elsewhere in the state. In a long-planned move, Texas on Saturday raised its price ceiling to $2,250 a megawatt hour from $1,500. Two days later, it hit the ceiling for the first time as wind production again trailed off. "Demand was going up as wind production was going down, so it amplified the effect," said Dan Jones, the state's independent electricity-market monitor.

FPL Group on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, seeking payment of cleanup costs associated with old munitions at its wind site in Texas. ...While it was in the process of purchasing the property, the Juno Beach-based utility learned it may be contaminated, so it hired TetraTech, an engineering and consulting firm, to evaluate it. While TetraTech was doing this, FPL (NYSE: FPL) leased the property. The suit says FPL could not wait for TetraTech to finish its study to lease Horse Hollow because it would not be complete before the federal deadline to develop clean-energy projects that would be entitled to receive production tax credits.

Mark Dreyfus, chairman of the ERCOT committee responsible for technical and policy issues, said it remains unclear whether the organization should have done something differently Tuesday night, or whether the rules themselves should be changed. He said ERCOT rules -- or "protocols," which carry the force of law -- are part of a living document that often changes. Dreyfus acknowledged that the rules might change again as a result of Tuesday's incident. "We'll go though this with ERCOT staff and the member companies to review the incident, and we'll look at the protocols and the procedures and operations and determine whether there are tweaks to be made," Dreyfus said.

"If a system can go unstable in the winter because 1,500 MW of expected wind turns into 400 MW wind and then fossil has to scramble to come online -- and several of our plants had to scramble to fill the gap -- that's a big issue and there's going to be a big debate," Crane said. Wind power levels often tend to drop off as the morning load increases and then pick up as the evening load declines.

Operators of the state electric grid were left scrambling to keep the lights on earlier this week after a sudden drop in West Texas wind threatened to cause rolling blackouts, officials said. Shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, grid operators ordered power shut off to so-called interruptible customers, which are industrial electric users who have agreed to forgo power in times of crisis. The move ensured continued stability of the grid after power dropped unexpectedly. The shortage was prompted largely by a near-total loss of wind generation as well as a failure of several energy providers to reach scheduled production and a spike in electricity usage, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Thursday.

A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday. Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state. The grid operator went directly to the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41 PM CST (0041 GMT), ERCOT said in a statement.

A contractor working with wind turbine generators at Port Freeport was arrested in Brazoria early Thursday morning on charges he stole a large amount of copper wire and sold it in Houston, police say. Terry Yeary, 53, of Brazoria was arrested on a Harris County warrant and charged with felony theft of enough copper wiring from the port project to make $72,000 off the Houston sale, said C.W. Stivers, Houston police scrap metal division detective. "We got a tip that he was selling it all here in Houston," Stivers said.

Austin Energy is looking to cultivate its own wind farm in West Texas as a way to ensure permanent access to wind power. Owning the wind turbines - rather than contracting for the power - would guarantee a supply of wind power into the future and give the utility more control over cost and other market factors, said Michael McCluskey, deputy general manager of Austin Energy. All of Austin Energy's wind power comes from long-term contracts with independent producers. The first contract is set to expire in 2011. The first step toward a wind farm would be to reserve the leasing rights to about 20,000 acres in Pecos County where wind turbines can be erected in the future. ...Michael Sloan, a renewable energy consultant with Austin-based Virtus Energy and a wind power advocate, is concerned that Austin Energy has no experience in wind generation.

Mary Wells of FPL Energy said this past week that all the wind turbines will be located in Cooke County, although there will be a few in the Saint Jo School District, which crosses into Cooke County. ...Wells said where wind turbines are not as well known, there are often lots of questions, unlike in West Texas where they are more common. "Very frequently people have questions we can satisfy, but some you can't reconcile. It is not unusual at all to face tough questions. If it is accepted, it can be a welcome experience. Sometimes it can't be resolved, but it is not a reason why we would not build," explained Wells. Saint Jo area residents rose up in protest about the wind turbine project with neighbors in conflict with each other. A citizen's advocacy group was formed and the city of Saint Jo enacted ordinances prohibiting their location in the city limits or extraterritorial jurisdiction. A lawsuit filed by a group of citizens from both counties seeking a temporary injunction to halt the wind farm production is still pending in the 235th District Court. Wells said in that suit an agreement has been reached and both sides are working out the details.

The waiting list for proposed wind energy projects in the state is 612 years. But changes are afoot. To anyone who wants to join the wind energy movement, Ryan Wolf says: Get in line. Wolf, of Le Sueur, Minn., has been waiting almost two years for the go-ahead to build 27 wind turbines in the southwest part of the state. It's anyone's guess how much longer he'll be waiting, given a backlog of applications that technically could take more than 600 years to clear at the federal agency that stands between him and the renewable energy marketplace.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is supposed to designate Competitive Renewable Energy Zones this year that would help build more transmission lines from West Texas and the Panhandle to population centers across Texas. Some areas like McCamey, south of Odessa, need more transmission lines to keep growing. 'The Texas Panhandle is the single best wind resource in the state, but it doesn't have transmission connection to the ERCOT grid,' Woodson said. 'McCamey no longer has adequate transmission. There are people waiting in line to develop out there. The [zone] process is still unfinished, but we're optimistic the state is going to make a commitment for the renewable-energy community to keep growing in the right way.' Some critics have warned that the high costs to build those transmission lines could result in higher electricity rates. But Woodson said the construction of transmission lines would help keep wind farms away from urban areas.

It's not that Mark and Vicki Hessenius and David Morrison want to stop the new EnXco wind energy project. They want to slow it down, because, they say, there are issues, questions and considerations to study. And, they all believe renewable energy is a "good thing," so the protests they make should not be classified as "not-in-my-backyard" emotions. Still, it sounded like a confrontation Tuesday night at the Mower County Planning Commission meeting. ..."We need electricity," said planning commissioner Jim Risius. "I remember when everybody was in favor of wind energy, but that isn't so today." The EnXco wind energy project involves 137 wind turbines to be constructed in two phases to generate 200 negawatts of electricity: 100 now and 100 more later.

Austin Energy customers are one reason the agency is moving ahead so rapidly, he said. They're willing to pay more for renewables - so much so, the program had to close when all the energy was spoken for. When the program reopened this month, most of the available energy sold out within the first week to industrial companies, despite a price difference of 2 cents per kilowatt hour. ...He also noted that adding renewables doesn't change customer expectations. "They expect near-perfect reliability," he said, "and they expect it at a low price." Springs Utilities, which is heavily reliant on coal to power its electric plants, had planned to build another coal plant within the next decade. But in the past six months, City Council members have said they want to delay the plant or cut its size by supplementing with renewables or managing demand better. Councilman Randy Purvis, who attended Wednesday's session, said Colorado Springs customers are like Austin's - they've said on surveys they're willing to pay more for alternatives, such as wind. But so far, Springs Utilities has offered only a small amount of wind, about 1 megawatt, and sells it to customers who sign up to pay more.

The Carson County Commissioner's Court today approved a reinvestment zone for Mesa Power. Mesa Power, L.P., had requested that the northeast corner of the county be designated a reinvestment zone for alternative or renewable energy and power facilities eligible for tax abatement under the state's tax code.

More than 1300 miles from home, standing in a cow pasture outside Abilene, Texas, Doug Anderson goes in search of windmills. This field trip is a bit of a departure for Anderson, who works as St. Lucie County's administrator. "We went out there to report back to the folks in the local community and come back with a factual report, and unbiased report," he says. ...Of course while windmills may work in the pastures of West Texas, Anderson admits the beaches of South Florida present a very different picture.

In a court battle closely watched by the growing wind energy industry, a Dallas judge has reversed an earlier jury verdict and ruled that Dallas-based TXU Corp. is not entitled to any damages in a contract dispute with major wind farm operator FPL Energy. The dispute centered on claims that Florida-based FPL Energy had not supplied levels of wind energy from three West Texas wind farms as agreed upon in a contract. The wind farms counterclaimed, alleging that they could not satisfy the contract because TXU intentionally had clogged high-voltage transmission lines, preventing the delivery of electricity produced by FPL Energy's wind turbines.

If Texas' wealth over the last century came from oil, wind farm developers are banking that a chunk of the state's future prosperity will come from an above-ground resource. ..."With wind law and the wind industry, what's happening legally is about the same place the oil industry was 100 years ago," said Ernest Smith, a University of Texas law professor who will teach a course in wind law this semester. "It's virtually unregulated. People realize there's great value to it, but there's no precedents in case law and very little statutory help." But as windmills go in the ground, will regulation catch up? Controversies over wind farms, especially those along the coast, have headed to the courthouse.