While the wind industry prepares for a big lobbying day next week at the State Capitol, it has some ammunition to fire at those legislators who want to remove tax incentives for the industry.
Last week, the Southwest Power Pool reported that more than 60 percent of its generated power came from the wind industry in Oklahoma and other states that make up the 14-state Great Plains electric grid.
To be specific, the amount was 60.56 percent. In other words, 13,928.94 megawatts of the 22,998.71 megawatts needed to provide power to customers in the pool came from wind farms.
Derek Wingfield with the corporate communications division at the Southwest Power Pool indicated the record set on Friday was just one of many set in recent months because of wind power.
He credits not only an increase in wind farms and wind-generated power but unusually mild weather in the region.
Wingfield stated that more than 17,000 megawatts is generated by wind power in the region and that represents at least 20 percent of the generating capacity of the grid in 2018.
