Will Harvey impact Texas wind generation?

Hurricane Harvey, while now downgraded to a tropical storm, has caused catastrophic flooding in Texas. So far, the storm has hit the state’s Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi to Houston, and inland to parts of Austin and San Antonio. Many have lost homes, businesses, and more.

Texas is home to many wind farms, and leads the U.S. with over 21,000 MW of installed wind capacity.

Edward Einowski, a partner at Stoel Rives LLP, specializes in renewable energy project finance. He works closely with wind developers, and recently commented on the impact Harvey might have on the wind industry:

“[I’m] not sure Harvey will have much of a direct impact on Texas’ wind-energy generation as relatively few wind projects are located in the southern part of the state — most are in the central part near the Panhandle where the wind regime is excellent.

“The intermittency of wind may provide some challenges in restoring service to those areas that got knocked out by Harvey. But other than the scale of the outages (which may end up being quite large), I am not sure there is much unusual in that regard.”

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