Texas wind sets new records as gas, coal, nuclear generation shares decline
Natural gas and wind energy increased in significance for the Texas grid operator in 2015 as coal’s share of the generation mix continued to decline.
The natural gas share of ERCOT’s electricity generation fell to 44.5% in November from 47.9% in October. It was 48.4% of ERCOT’s generation for the first eleven months of 2015, up from 41.1% for that period in 2014.
Coal’s share of ERCOT generation fell to 27.2% from October’s 30.4%. It dropped from 36.3% of the grid’s supply in the first eleven months of 2014 to 28.5% for the same period this year.
Wind has also gained on nuclear power in ERCOT. Both are at about 11.3% of the grid operator’s generation for the first eleven months of 2015, but in that period last year, nuclear power provided 11.3% of ERCOT’s electricity while wind was at 10.6%.
Demand on the ERCOT system in November was 23.9 TWh, nearly 13% below October’s 27.5 TWh and 2.9% below the 24.7 TWh in November 2014.
