Texas House approves bill to limit renewable energy expansion.

Texas House Approves Legislation to Boost Coal and Natural Gas Power

Overview

Texas Republican House lawmakers have approved legislation aimed at increasing grid reliability by boosting coal and natural gas power. Critics argue that the legislation will harm the state’s leading renewable energy sector and drive up consumer costs. The bill, SB 7, cleared the House on Monday evening in a 119-21 vote. An earlier version of the legislation cleared the Texas Senate last month, but the version that advanced in the House was amended slightly.

Details

The legislation is aimed at paying incumbent generators on the Texas grid more money so long as they can guarantee dispatchable sources of energy, such as natural gas or other fossil fuels. Proponents say the legislation will increase reliability by rewarding power sources that can come online within two hours and run for at least four hours. The legislation is part of a Republican-led effort in the state to add additional gas-powered generation to the grid following Winter Storm Uri, the 2021 storm that caused 4.5 million Texans to lose power and resulted in 246 deaths.

Critics have said the legislation, if passed, would move energy markets in the wrong direction. Last year, Texas generated 180,145 gigawatt-hours of electricity from carbon-free sources, according to the Energy Information Administration, by far the highest source of carbon-free energy in the country.

Concerns

A coalition of industry, consumer, and environmental groups outlined their concerns about the pending legislation in a letter sent in March to the chairman of the state Senate’s Business and Commerce Committee. The group called for Texas lawmakers to eliminate the grid “firming” obligations, or provisions that require renewable plants to add a backup source of power, from its proposals to allow for nondiscriminatory technology-neutral products and services to be added to the grid and to consider all factors that can cause reliability concerns when sizing a product or service on the grid.

“We believe, if incorporated, these consumer-focused and market-driven principles will increase both the reliability and affordability of energy in ERCOT,” the Advanced Power Alliance, the Texas Solar Power Association, American Clean Power Association, Solar Energy Industries Association, and Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation said in the letter.