This is an excerpt from the First Quarter 2012 edition of the Wind Program R&D Newsletter.

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently released a report finding that inter-regional cooperation can help lower the cost of transporting wind energy from windy areas in the Midwest and South-Central United States to areas with less wind generation capability in the Southeastern United States, improving the ability to meet our nation's electricity demand using clean resources. DOE awarded the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and LCG Consulting an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant to evaluate the benefits of coordinating inter-regional transfers of wind energy. The final report, titled Integrating Southwest Power Pool Wind Energy into Southern Electricity Markets, concludes that coordinating the scheduling and balancing of Southwest Power Pool (SPP) wind power transfers to the Southeastern Electric Reliability Council Balancing Authorities (SERC BA) can yield cost reductions and improve the system's ability to meet energy demands.

Due to varying regional wind speeds, specific regions of the country, such as the Midwest and Texas, are better-suited for wind energy production than others, such as the Southeast.  As states continue to diversify their energy portfolios, increased regional cooperation will be needed to supply clean, renewable energy to regions that face renewable energy deficits. This report evaluates the benefits and challenges associated with the delivery of 34,000 MW of surplus electricity—generated by wind farms in states throughout the Southwest Power Pool (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri) —to supply renewable energy to multiple balancing authorities located in the Southeast including Entergy, Southern Company, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The report results show that increased cooperation among the Balancing Authorities results in aggregate system benefits—when the Southwest Power Pool, Entergy, Southern Company, and the Tennessee Valley Authority increase coordination and share balancing requirements, this results in decreased costs and increased system efficiency. As renewable energy becomes a greater percentage of the nation's energy portfolio, increased coordination among regional balancing authorities can be a useful tool in providing clean, affordable energy to all regions of the country.

The final report and executive summary provide more detailed information about the analysis, assumptions, scenarios, and results.