Compressed Air Electricity Storage Comes to The Texas Panhandle

The Statesman has a piece about a plan to build a compressed air electricity storage facility in the Texas panhandle.  Essentially, the facility will make use of wind electricity that is produced overnight when wind turbines generally produce the most electricity even though demand is much lower generally than it is during the day.   This is one of the main complaints about wind power.  That’s why technology that could store this otherwise wasted electricity capacity overnight and feed it back to the grid when it is really needed is so important to growing renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

This will ultimately lead to lower electric rates for consumers.  Electricity providers in Dallas and Houston usually sell fixed rate electric plans to consumers.  As a result,  the provider takes on the risk of wholesale price spikes.   However, even though these prices aren’t immediately passed to consumers this risk is ultimately baked into the retail price Texans pay for electricity.