Regional transmission operator Southwest Power Pool announced February 13 that wind power had set a wind-penetration record of 52.1 percent at 4:30 a.m. the day before, February 12. That made it the first RTO in North America to serve more than 50 percent of its load at a given time with wind energy. The milestone beats a previous North American RTO record of 49.2 percent that SPP set April 24, 2016.
The proliferation of wind power in the SPP region has grown significantly over the last decade. As recently as the early 2000s, SPP’s generating fleet included less than 400 MW of wind, and for years, wind was reported in the “Other” category in SPP’s fuel mix data. Wind is now the third most-prevalent fuel source in the SPP region, making up approximately 15 percent of the organization’s generating capacity in 2016, behind only natural gas and coal.
Installed wind-generation capacity increased in 2016 alone by more than 30 percent — up 4,000 MW from 12 GW to more than 16 GW. SPP’s maximum simultaneous wind generation peak rose from 9,948 MW in 2015 to 12,336 MW in early 2016.