Hale County windfarm producing free energy for Xcel customers

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - There is a bright side to all of this wind, which is an abundant energy source. Wind farms across West Texas and New Mexico produce about 40% of the power for Xcel Energy.

The Hale Wind Farm was built in 2019, it consists of 239 wind turbines. Hale Wind Farm operations manager Shaun Marsh said each with the capacity to produce two megawatts an hour, which means each turbine can power three thousand homes an hour at max speeds.

“We do have a group that forecasts the wind speed, and they’ve actually over the years gotten pretty accurate,” Marsh said.

Forecasters predict the most energy is generated, conveniently when the most power is used, morning and night, when we get ready for work or come home.

“February to April was probably our highest production. July, August is where we see probably the least amount of production,” Marsh said.

The moment electricity is generated, it must be used, which is the downside of renewables. The future of renewables is to find a way to store all the free energy.

“It’s in its infancy right now. And, you know, there are future technologies that, you know, that we depend on to, to, you know, take advantage of, you know, the wind and solar,” Marsh said.

Since the wind farm was built, it has created over 300 jobs and brought a sizable tax revenue to the community.

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