Large amounts of wind energy can be reliably integrated into the electricity grid and can actually improve reliability, despite the claims in Dr. Matthew C. Cordaro's letter ("Integrating renewable energy," Feb. 1).

The New York grid operator studied this issue in a comprehensive report, "Growing Wind," and concluded that "the addition of up to 8 GW of wind generation to the New York power system will have no adverse reliability impact."

For comparison, that is nearly five times the current installed wind capacity in New York state.

The cost to integrate wind is far lower than for large conventional power plants.

Whereas outages at conventional power plants can suddenly and unexpectedly remove large amounts of electricity from the grid, changes in wind output are gradual and predictable, occurring gradually over many hours.

As one example, this past December, the Indian Point nuclear reactor that Mr. Cordaro touted unexpectedly went offline, and it was New York's supply of wind energy that kept prices stable for consumers.

Wind already reliably supplies enough electricity to power 364,000 New York homes, and the Department of Energy's Wind Vision scenario finds that could grow to 1.6 million by 2030.

Iowa generates nearly 30 percent of its electricity with wind, while South Dakota and Kansas generate over 20 percent.

Wind energy surpassed nuclear in 2015 as the third largest source of electricity in Texas, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator for most of the state.

The evidence abounds — wind energy is a reliable, growing part of our energy mix.

Michael Goggin

Senior director of research

American Wind Energy Association

Washington, D.C.

>www.awea.org>