Texas lawmakers want to use state’s ‘police power’ to halt renewable energy projects
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.
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
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The bill would also force renewable projects to pay an annual “environmental impact fee” to fund site cleanups of these projects, even though greenhouse gas-emitting energy projects in the state, including oil and natural gas, are not subject to similar dues.
The bill claims to protect private property rights by preventing solar and wind energy projects from being placed within 100 feet or 3,000 feet, respectively, of any property line unless a developer gets a written waiver from every property owner within the area. Neeley says this bill violates private property rights. “These projects can only happen if the property owner agrees and works out a deal in order to do them,” he said. Those who object to these renewable energy projects are usually people who live in another part of the state and don’t like renewable energy sources, according to Neeley.