Lone Star? Windmill! Green energy booms in Texas.

Scientific American lauds the state long linked with oil money for breaking wind power production records:

The Lone Star State hit “peak wind” at 8:48 p.m. on March 26, when the state’s wind farms produced 10,296 megawatts of electricity. At that moment, wind turbines provided enough electricity to supply power for 29 percent of the total electricity load of the state’s main power grid.

Though the March 26 wind power output record supplied 29 percent of ERCOT’s load at that moment, wind power has provided for a larger share — up to 38.43 percent — of the load at times of low demand, EIA industry economist April Lee said.

“Texas leads the nation in wind capacity, more than double the next state (California), so it’s safe to say that no other state has come close so far,” Lee said via email. “The recent peak is generally indicative of the increasing amount of wind capacity across the United States and the need for grid operators to manage growing volumes of wind power on their systems.”

Texas has more than 12,000 megawatts of total wind power capacity, but its turbines have never produced that much electricity at any given moment. The March 26 output record beat a record set the previous week by a about 600 megawatts.