New coal retirements announced by Luminant (Big Brown and Sandow plants) means ERCOT will soon lose significant coal generation capacity. At the same time, wind capacity is expected to increase by nearly 4,000 MW by 2018, meaning wind capacity will soon exceed coal capacity in Texas. Given current capacity factors for the respective technologies, it’s conceivable that energy generation from wind could possibly overtake coal in the near future.

For more, contact Dr. Joshua Rhodes, research fellow at UT Austin’s Energy Institute:

joshdr@utexas.edu or @joshdr83

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