Wind power coming

Irish firm plans to make Texas a player in clean energy

12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, April 4, 2006

By ELIZABETH SOUDER / The Dallas Morning News

Airtricity Inc. plans to build enough wind-powered electricity plants here to make Texas the No. 1 wind state next year.

And the Irish company has hired Pat Wood to help. Airtricity named Mr. Wood to the board.

He's a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and he is the guy who deregulated the Texas electricity industry as chairman of the Public Utility Commission.

Today, Airtricity will announce its new board member, as well as plans to build about 600 megawatts of wind-generation capacity, almost entirely in Texas.

Further, the Irish company plans to become a retail electric provider in Texas.

"The clean technology space, which is what wind and solar and fuel cells fall under, is just going bonkers," said Mr. Wood, who also sits on the board of a solar-energy company.

"The kind of private equity investor and pension fund money that's coming into the clean tech space looks like a tsunami," he said.

Airtricity doesn't have any wind generators yet. Chief executive Eddie O'Connor plans to build 200 megawatts of wind generation this year and about 400 next year, mostly in Texas.

He has about 2,000 megawatts of capacity in various planning stages.

"Texas has great winds, good grids and a very positive attitude toward development," Mr. O'Connor said. "We're going to try to make a difference here in Texas, create energy self-sufficiency here in Texas."

Texas has about 2,000 megawatts of wind generation, so the Airtricity capacity would make Texas the No. 1 wind generation state next year, he said.

Mr. O'Connor declined to say where he would build more capacity.

Already Airtricity is building a wind farm in West Texas.

Mr. O'Connor also said he plans to enter the retail electricity market in about two years.

Many Texans are willing to pay a bit more for wind-generated electricity for environmental reasons.

But Mr. O'Connor pointed out that the rise of the price of natural gas, which generates about half of the electricity in Texas, has put wind energy in a position to compete on price.

E-mail esouder@dallasnews.com