Note 5/22/2020: There is an update of NYS wind data with 2019 information and more statistics available at CLCPA NYS Wind Energy Resource
New York’s transition to the clean energy utopia envisioned by Governor Cuomo’s Reforming the Energy Vision and New York Green New Deal depends in no small part upon wind energy. This post summarizes the status of wind energy in New York at the end of 2018.
The New York State Independent System Operator (NYISO) publishes an annual report that presents load and capacity data including historical and forecast seasonal peak demand, energy usage, and existing and proposed generation and transmission facilities. The Load and Capacity Date Report or Gold Book is a featured report in the NYISO document library. This post uses data in Table III-2 Existing Generating Facilities from those reports.
Procedure
In order to summarize the current state of wind energy generation in New York I will provide a table with all the existing wind facilities based on the NYISO data. Gold Book Table III-2, Existing Generating Facilities lists all existing generating resources operating in the New York Control Area. It provides information on generator ownership, location, in-service date, fuels used, and generator type. It includes values for nameplate rating, NYISO summer Capacity Resource Interconnection Service (CRIS) MW values for generators, summer and winter capability, and net energy generated during the preceding calendar year.
The New York State Wind Facility Status table lists the generating facilities categorized as wind units. It lists the nameplate capacity rating in MW and the capacity factor for each facility. The capacity factor is a calculated value that describes how much energy was actually produced (MWh) relative to the total generation that could have been produced if the unit ran at the nameplate rating 8,760 hours per year. The table lists the calculated statewide net energy produced by all the wind facilities and the annual potential capacity and the statewide wind energy capacity factor. The spreadsheet with all these data is available upon request.
Status
At the end of 2018 there were 24 wind facilities in the NYISO report including two new facilities that began operating during the year. There are 1,982 MW of wind power available within New York. However, the capacity factor for all the facilities was only 24.5% and they only produced 3,985 GWh of energy when the wind was blowing.
I have read that wind turbine performance degrades over time so I checked that out. The Maple Ridge 1 wind farm has been in operation for 12 years. The 2018 capacity factor was lower than the peak year five years ago but no lower than any of the proceeding years. This indicates that there has been no degradation of the performance of the turbines over 12 years.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 