CPS Energy is located in San Antonio, Texas it is the largest municipality owned utilities company in the country. In March of 2008 CPS Energy signed a 15 year agreement with PPM Energy, Inc who is building a large wind power farm near the coastline of Texas. The agreement calls for CPS Energy to receive the power from 32 of PPM Energy Inc.’s 2.4 Mega Watt wind turbines adding another 75 MW of clean energy to its grid. The wind farm is located 1 mile inland from the Gulf of Mexico on the Kenedy Ranch not far from Baffin Bay. PPM Energy picked this area because of its location and designed it so the nearby community of Sarita won’t even see the wind turbines as they generate power.
A deciding factor in the purchase of the 15 year agreement by CPS Energy was that the area gets nice strong winds during the hot sunny summer days of coastal Texas. CPS Energy already gets wind power from two farms in West Texas. The Cottonwood Creek Wind Farm located near Sweetwater, Texas generates 340 MW of power for CPS and they get another 160 MW of power from the Desert Sky Wind Farm near the small town of Iraan, Texas. CPS Energy will have 575 MW of clean green wind powered energy to provide its customers before 2008 is over.
With strong ambition and green goals in mind CPS Energy hopes to provide 15% of its customer’s peak power usage with clean green energy by the year 2020. That is a great goal considering just how fast San Antonio and the surrounding area is growing. I can only hope that with new technology and lower costs for solar and wind power that CPS can reach its goals faster then expected and extend them even higher.
For those of you who are customers of CPS in and around San Antonio don’t forget to sign up for CPS Energy’s Windtricity program to provide your home with clean green wind power. It is slightly more expensive, but the trade off is it doesn’t cost the environment the way other sources of power do. Making it totally worth it in my book. They also offer a free programmable thermostat’s for customers through the Peak Saver program.
Popularity: 3% [?]
No related posts.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Does CPS offer 100% wind energy to it’s clients? I just switched over my home electricity with Con Edison and they are giving us 100% wind energy.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
They sure do they offer it with a premium attached, but its offered. You can adjust how much wind power you want to buy for your home also. A pretty cool option for people on a budget they can experiment with different levels of “green”.