Texas Wind Power Gets Hot
January 14, 2006 by admin
Filed under Green Living
The demand for wind power in Austin, Texas has become so great that they’re going to start a lottery to select who gets some. Austin Energy’s Green Choice program had to cut off new sign-ups last October and now with new turbines coming online with enough juice for another 1,400 residential and 200 business customers, it’s still not enough to quench the thirst.
Rising gas prices have caused the price of gas-generated electricity in Austin to surpass that of wind. Even with the extra costs for members of Austin Energy’s Green Choice program, the average home user will now save about $16 per year with the wind option.
Austin City Council voted on Thursday to hold a raffle drawing in March to select which of its municipal utility customers will get a chance to switch. Check out these articles from News8Austin and the AustinChronicle for more details.
As Bruce Sterling points out in his blog post on this, they used to have to beg folks to sign up for this program!
[via Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond]
