Texas Lawmakers Want To Use ‘Police Power’ of the State To Halt Renewable Energy Projects
Texas generates the most renewable energy in the nation. Three Republican bills being advanced by the state legislature could halt Texas’ green energy progress and give fossil fuels a leg up in the state’s energy market.
Senate Bill 388, which has passed the state Senate, would require at least 50 percent of power generation installed after January 1, 2026, to come from “dispatchable” energy sources, which include natural gas, nuclear power, and coal. This bill effectively subsidizes fossil fuel projects by requiring utility providers to purchase power generation credits from dispatchable energy sources.Â
If passed, this bill could have a “big impact” on the state’s power grid, Josiah Neeley, senior energy fellow at the free market R Street Institute, tells Reason. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the regulatory agency that manages 90 percent of the state’s power market, expects its energy demand to jump from about 94 gigawatts (GW) today to 208 GW in 2030. Renewables are expected to satisfy a significant share of this demand. ERCOT says 346 GW worth of projects are waiting to connect to the grid, 96 percent of which are solar, wind, or battery storage. “If you’re saying half of all new stuff has to be gas, then you end up cutting out a lot of new generations,” says Neeley
Senate Bill 715 amends existing statutes to set strict reliability requirements that would favor fossil fuel sources. Under the bill, “solar generators would have to secure enough battery or gas power to match their output at night—a time when no one expects them to produce energy and when demand is typically at its lowest anyway,” according to Doug Lewin, a Texas energy expert. A report from Aurora Energy Research estimates that this bill would add $5.2 billion to Texas power prices over the next decade; residents could pay an extra $200 per year in energy costs. The bill has passed out of committee and awaits a vote on the Senate floor.Â
As these two bills incentivize power generation primarily from fossil sources, Senate Bil
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