Fact check: WSJ editorial board says renewable energy is to blame for rising Texas electricity bills
Renewable energy doesn’t seem to have played much of a role, said Michael Giberson, senior fellow in energy policy at R Street Institute, a center-right think tank. He compared the increase in Texas electricity rates with the rise of rates in Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia, three states with very little solar or wind power.
Looking at the same Energy Department dataset for those four states, electricity rates averaged across all sectors rose the least in Texas, Giberson posted in a thread on X.
Plus, the average retail price of electricity in Texas is consistently below the national average, said Giberson, formerly an energy economics professor at Texas Tech University. That’s been the case even as wind power grew rapidly in Texas in the 2010’s, and solar power began booming in the state in more recent years.
“There’s no evidence of runaway costs being imposed on Texas consumers by renewable power,” Giberson said in an interview.
Why electricity costs are increasing, beyond inflation
Beyond inflation, a host of other factors in recent years have also contributed to elevated electricity rates, Beaufils and Giberson said.
For one, Texas consumers are still paying off billions in charges from the 2021 winter freeze, when dayslong outages ensued after power plants couldn’t produce enough electricity to meet demand across the state.
Since the 2021 freeze, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has operated the state grid more cautiously by keeping more power reserves on hand in case of unexpected shortages. This has increased wholesale electricity prices by keeping some supply off the market — most notably in 2023, when a record-breaking heat wave strained the grid for months.
Also, in 2022, natural gas prices spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine. Since much of the power plants on the Texas grid are fueled by natural gas, electricity prices in Texas surged too.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board blamed renewable energy for contributing to higher Texas electricity prices in a few ways: by creating price spikes when solar and wind resources aren’t available, and by requiring more long-distance power lines to deliver electricity across the state.
Those cost drivers, however, are not unique to wind and solar power.
Wholesale electricity prices in Texas also see spikes when fossil fuel power plants are unavailable, such as in summer 2023, when large numbers of gas- and coal-fired plants broke down after being run continuously during the heatwave.
And, more recently, ERCOT says more than $30 billion of investment in long-distance transmission lines is needed primarily to support the oil and gas industry, which has long wanted more access to the power grid, and to accommodate AI data centers.
Texas consumers could see electricity bill increases, too, as electric utilities charge more for storm damage and bolster their infrastructure against worsening extreme weather.