By Timothy Stuckey – Austin News Texas lawmakers’ recent response to February’s widespread power outages due to the winter storm included making adjustments to the state’s power grid that analysts say will begin to solve some of the problems identified by the storm, according to a Texas Tribune report. Some critics argue, however, that the state legislature…
Category: Energy
Have Texas’ Power Problems Been Fixed?
Texans aren’t out of the woods yet when it comes to the energy crisis By Robert Montoya at Texas Scorecard Despite Gov. Greg Abbott signing legislation in response to the February blackouts, concerns have emerged about Texas’ power grid this summer. Texas Scorecard spoke with three of the state’s energy experts about the possibility of future blackouts,…
Texas Legislature Ignores Renewables in Grid Reform: More Problems Ahead
Robert Bradley Jr., a very knowledgeable energy economist with significant experience in the energy market, recently interviewed me for MasterResource, a blog covering energy issues from a free market perspective: Bradley: How did the just-completed Texas legislative session deal with the February Blackout that caused so much damage to life and property? Peacock: The session had two issues to address here….
Subsidies to Nowhere
A Year-by-Year Estimate of Renewable Energy Subsidy Costs for Texas and for the U.S. The Texas electricity market is being overrun by renewable energy generation. Since 2018, 79.3% of all new generation has been intermittent renewable energy. Only 19.1% has come from generation that can be dispatched, and all of that comes from one source—natural…
Troy I.S.D and Jack County Set to Bring More Renewables to Texas
Residents in two Texas counties may soon face new renewable energy farms if local officials don’t change their tune. Monday night (June 21 @ 6 p.m.) the trustees on the board of Troy I.S.D. can approve a tax abatement for Big Elm Solar. The solar farm will cover about 3,000 acres in Bell County, and…
Will Texas Legislators Take on Renewable Energy?
Despite years of increasing reliance on intermittent generation sources like wind and solar, Texas policymakers seem to have been caught by surprise by the blackouts experienced by millions of Texans this winter. They should not have been. While temperatures dropped into the single digits for extended periods over much of Texas, solar and wind generators…
Renewables Taking Over the Texas Grid
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the entity that operates the Texas electric grid, last week projected record-high demand this summer because of hot, dry weather and Texas’ continued economic growth. ERCOT projects that demand could reach as high as 77,144 megawatts (MW) this summer. But says with a projected 86,862 MW of generation…
Energy Transfer Made $2.4 Billion From Texas Winter Storm
By Gerson Freitas Jr (Bloomberg) Energy Transfer LP, the pipeline giant controlled by billionaire Kelcy Warren, has emerged as the biggest winner so far from the deadly winter storm that paralyzed Texas in February. The company saw a positive earnings impact from the extreme weather of about $2.4 billion, it said Thursday in its first-quarter…
A Capacity Market Will Make Texas Electricity More Expensive, Not More Reliable
See a printable version of the report at the Texas Energy Alliance Introduction In 1999, a bipartisan coalition of Texas legislators bucked the interests of Texas public utilities to introduce what became the world’s most competitive electricity market. Though not without its flaws, the legislation passed that session set the stage for an unprecedented experiment…
Adding ‘unreliable’ wind, solar is ‘at the expense of the reliables’
By Juliette Fairley. Houston Republic Taxpayer subsidies paid to wind and solar developers contributed to the grid nearing emergency conditions this week, according to an oil and gas expert. “That’s part of it,” Robert Bradley, CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research, said. “We get a lot of generation we don’t need just because…