Dive Brief:
- Oklahoma's growing wind power industry will need greater organization, transparency and planning to reach its full potential, according to a panel hosted by the University of Tulsa College of Law.
- The state's large-scale wind generation is only a bit more than a decade old, but has begun to spread towards urban areas, the Oklahoman reports.
- There is also some concern Oklahoma residents providing tax incentives for the cleaner generation are seeing the benefits exported to neighboring states.
Dive Insight:
The state's commercial-scale wind generation began in 2003, but has since grown to just shy of 4,000 MW of installed capacity, The Oklahoman reports. Boosted by tax credits for emissions-free power, Oklahoma is now the fourth largest wind producer in the country. But growth of the industry may be beginning to polarize the state, and the newspaper reports on a recent panel focused on how wind power can be developed effectively.
Panelists called for greater community planning as wind farms are approaching more urban areas, moving out of the western, rural portion of Oklahoma. And some, like Robson Properties president Rick Mosier, are pushing to end millions in tax subsidies.
“We’re trying to shoehorn a new industry that is very capital intensive into a program that was meant for industries that are labor intensive,” said Mosier. He would like to see the state put an end to certain job requirements related to property tax exemptions.
Incentives being paid for by state residents may also be benefiting other states when the power is exported. But the state must also be wary of ending subsidies because of competition from neighboring wind producers like Texas and Kansas.
According to the The Wind Coalition, the state's largest utilities estimated the total savings to customers’ electric bills generated by wind power will be more than $2 billion over the next two to three decades.
Texas currently leads the nation in wind power production. In 2013 it produced nearly 36 million MWh of electricity powered by the renewable resource and has some 12,000 MW of wind capacity.