[dude1394]

Some additional data..
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25708335

Assuming 18,000 MWatts is created and the current 5,000Mwatts is 4percent. This additional ~20,000 Mwatts would be 24%. Nice and free once you get it going.

Texas extended its already formidable national lead in wind power by clearing the way Thursday for a major expansion of the state's electrical power transmission network, valued at nearly $5 billion, a move that will triple its current wind power capacity.

The preliminary approval from the Public Utility Commission of Teaxs (PUCT) effectively green-lights tens of billions of dollars more in wind development investment and will supply the state with more than 18,000 megawatts of additional wind power.

The decision consolidates Texas as "the epicenter of land-based wind energy development in North America, if not the world," said Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman in a statement.

Texas’ basic challenge – bringing power from where the wind blows hardest to where the electricity it generates is most needed - is the same faced by the rest of the country, and the Lone Star state's aggressive embrace of wind has made it a national model.

“Transmission is the single largest strategic constraint for wind …but Texas has probably the most innovative policy for getting transmission built; it is increasingly a model,” says Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association.

Texas currently has 5,249 megawatts (MW) of wind power - almost a third of the national total - supplying four percent of the state’s total electricity demand.

The Department of Energy recently released a study saying wind could provide 20 percent of the country’s electricity needs by 2030, if the transmission and other key problems can be solved.

20 percent of our electricity need won't cut it with so many PHEV's running by then. Better think bigger boys...By then I expect our electricity needs will have doubled or tripled.