Notrees is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in west-central
Ector County, Texas
Ector County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. In the 2020 census, its population was 165,171. Its county seat is Odessa. The county was founded in 1887 and organized in 1891. It is named for Matthew Ector, a Confederate gene ...
, United States. It is located on
State Highway 302, approximately 20 miles northwest of
Odessa
ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...
.
The community is part of the
Odessa metropolitan statistical area.
The area began to develop in the 1940s following the discovery of large oil fields, including the TXL Field. Notrees was known at various times as Caprock and Strawberry. Local merchant Charles E. Brown petitioned for a post office and selected the descriptive name of Notrees. Reportedly, the community had a single native tree before it was destroyed during the construction of a
Shell Oil Company
Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States–based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is among the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,000 ...
gas plant.
Notrees thrived during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1966, its population was 338 and the area was supported by several oil-company camps and a few businesses. The community began to decline by the 1980s as a result of oil companies abandoning the camps that once provided housing for employees and their families. An improved infrastructure enabled workers to live elsewhere (e.g., Odessa) and commute to Notrees. The community's small population currently supports four businesses.
The area has a 153 MW
wind farm
A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...
, connected to one of the world's largest
grid energy storage
Grid energy storage, also known as large-scale energy storage, are technologies connected to the electrical power grid that store energy for later use. These systems help balance supply and demand by storing excess electricity from variabl ...
systems and used mostly for electrical-grid
frequency response
In signal processing and electronics, the frequency response of a system is the quantitative measure of the magnitude and Phase (waves), phase of the output as a function of input frequency. The frequency response is widely used in the design and ...
.
Lead-acid batteries, capable of delivering full power of for 40 minutes, were used from 2012 to 2016.
In 2017, they were replaced with
lithium-ion batteries
A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energy ...
. Meanwhile,
several higher-powered batteries have been installed elsewhere.
See also
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Nowood River
The Nowood River (also known as Nowood Creek) is a river in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The -river rises in the Bridger Mountains on the southeastern side of the Bighorn Basin. The stream runs north through the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains a ...
, Wyoming
References
External links
Notrees, Texas– Texas Escapes Online Magazine
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Other photos of the Llano Estacado and West Texas
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Unincorporated communities in Texas
Unincorporated communities in Ector County, Texas