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| Caprock Solar Facility, outside of Tucumcari, New Mexico, another of Western Farmers' solar farms. Western Farmers Electric Cooperative buys the 25 MW of energy it produces as part of a long-term power purchase agreement with its developer. Source: The Oklahoman |
From CleanTechnica:
Western Farmers Electric Cooperative, one of the largest electricity co-ops in Oklahoma, has signed a power purchase agreement with NextEra Energy Resources. Under the terms of the PPA, Western Farmers will receive 500 MW of electricity from the Skeleton Creek renewable energy project. The terms of the PPA have not been announced.
Located in parts of three counties in Oklahoma, Skeleton Creek will include 250 MW of wind power, 250 MW of solar power, and 200 MW of battery storage with a duration of 4 hours for a total of 800 MW. It is the largest combined wind, solar, and storage facility so far in the United States.
Gary Roulet, the cooperative’s CEO, tells The Oklahoman the project will help the cooperative boost the amount of reliable, low-cost and environmentally friendly energy it provides its customers. “With the prices of wind and solar energy lower than ever, we are now able to pair those with battery storage to make more affordable, renewable energy available to customers for more hours of the day — even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.”
From The Oklahoman:
“Wind has the tendency to blow during nighttimes, while solar generates its energy during the day,” said Phil Schaeffer, the cooperative's principal resource planning engineer. “We are really hoping to see how battery storage interacts with that whole profile.
“Hopefully, that will translate to better grid stability.”
This is the pattern everywhere: wind plus solar with 4 hours of storage. And it's cheap. Wind is negatively correlated with solar—it blows at night and in winter, when solar is either absent or low. With a mixture of wind and solar, 4 hours of storage is enough to take renewables to 80% of the grid.
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