The 2021 winter storms in Texas shed light on the need for the Texan energy grid to be updated and improved. In response, the Public Utility Commission (PUC) has proposed a plan to significantly overhaul the current grid system. However, this proposal has been met with scrutiny from both policy experts and leading politicians alike.
The PUC’s plan includes investing in more resilient infrastructure across Texas, as well as exploring investments in renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind power. This is seen as a way to ensure that the state will not suffer from future power outages due to severe weather events.
In the Lone Star State of Texas, the government is staking a lot on renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. However, for citizens, this bet appears to be falling flat as electricity prices rise and grid reliability decreases.
“Texas government may be making a big bet on renewables, but Texas consumers are coming up snake eyes,” Bill Peacock, policy director for Energy Alliance, told Collins Times. “Over the last few years, the intermittency of renewables has increased the costs of electricity and reduced the reliability of the grid. This is usually what happens when bets are made with someone else’s money.”
Recent years have seen a steady increase in price and drop in reliability due to the intermittency of renewables. Intermittency is a major issue with renewable energy sources – unlike traditional methods such as coal-fired power plants, they don’t run constantly and reliably. This has driven up consumer costs, while also making it increasingly difficult to provide consistent electricity.
Following the devastating storm Uri in 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was swift to take action, directing the state’s Public Utility Commission to implement immediate measures to enhance grid reliability throughout Texas. This call to action from the governor was soon backed up by a number of bills passed by the Texas Legislature and signed into law, with the aim of improving power system resilience in the state.
At the time of Uri, leading think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation issued a statement that blamed renewable energy generators for failing to produce sufficient energy when it was most needed. The foundation argued that “wind and solar generation failed to provide an adequate response during this period of peak demand.”
A new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that Texas leads the nation in installed wind power capacity and is second for installed solar capacity. This is part of a larger trend toward increased renewable energy generation, as it is projected to surpass natural gas in 2023.
Texas state Rep. Jared Patterson recently offered his perspective on this issue.
“Energy producers have moved away from reliable fossil fuels and toward unreliable renewables because it’s nearly impossible to compete with taxpayer-funded subsidies tipping the scales so heavily,” Patterson said.
In a recent letter to the PUC, Texas state Sen. Charles Schwertner strongly expressed his opposition to their plan for the grid. This comes in response to research from the Energy Alliance, which has raised questions about the reliability of renewable generators due to their naturally intermittent nature. The research additionally addressed the increased costs imposed by renewable generators as a result of subsidization.
The study drew attention to SB 3, a piece of legislation sponsored by Schwertner that was passed into law during the previous legislative session in 2021. According to Schwertner, SB 3 “did not direct the PUC to replace the state’s energy-only market with an unnecessarily complex, capacity-style design that puts the competitive market at risk without guaranteeing any substantial benefits.”
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