What energy source will supply electricity on calm days?

In Oklahoma, the answer to this question is most commonly natural gas-powered electrical generation. Wind and natural gas are a good marriage in Oklahoma for a number of reasons. From an electrical reliability perspective, natural gas works well with wind because natural gas-powered electrical generation can respond rapidly when needed in that it can be throttled up and down quickly to offest changes in the wind (compare that to coal-fired generation, which can take hours to increase or decrease its generation capacity). From a cost perspective, wind power is often competitive with the cost of power generated by natural gas, and thus if wind power is available, natural gas generation may be backed down to save costs for the utility. How long have you been working on wind energy? Unofficially, I have been working on wind energy since I was 5 years old, helping my dad repair windmills on our family farm. Officially, I started working with utility scale wind energy leases since 2005, ...  more