Wind production falls throughout the West
Electricity produced by wind turbines down in West, but not Colorado.
Blame it on the weather, but the electricity produced from wind turbines dropped across most Western states last year, according to counts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Wind production declines ran from 10 to 15 percent in Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming from 2014 and 2015. But every other Western state in the continental U.S. except Nevada and Colorado generated less from wind.
Colorado likely would have joined the declining wind states, but it added enough new capacity to offset the tamer gusts.
Last year’s weather patterns, however, produced stronger winds in the central part of the country. Michigan and Indiana saw increases of 20 percent plus in generation, while Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska measured production gains in the 10 to 20 percent range.
Nationally, wind generation rose 5.1 percent last year, lagging the 12.9 percent gain in capacity. The annual increase in wind generation was the smallest in 16 years.
Production counts for January 2016 show a 21.3 percent jump in U.S. wind generation versus a year earlier, driven by more bluster in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to the EIA.
Colorado saw a modest 2.3 percent increase in wind generation in January from a year earlier.
One of the strongest El Niño weather patterns in decades reduced the demand for heating fuels this winter, according to another EIA report.
The October-to-March winter season was 15 percent warmer than that in 2014, contributing to a 16 percent decline in demand for propane and a 45 percent drop in demand for heating oil. Residential electricity demand was down 6 percent this winter.
Prices for natural gas, the heating source in about half of U.S. homes, dropped 5.6 percent compared with the previous winter. As of April 7, the amount of natural gas in storage was 69 percent higher than measured a year earlier, the EIA reported.