We’re a long way from 2015, when, in his farewell address, Gov. Rick Perry told legislators that they “can be proud that Texas produces more energy from wind turbines than all but five countries.”
Today, this crucial source of energy is more robust in Texas than it ever has been. But — forgive us — the political hot air is blowing even stronger.
Gov. Greg Abbott got us started down this road when he decided, incorrectly, to blame wind and solar energy for the electricity supply problem during the 2021 winter storm.
Since then, Texas Republicans have piled on, seizing on various versions of a “reliables not renewables” slogan that sound great in a stump speech and fit just fine on a bumper sticker but that will fail to lead us to serious policy that actually addresses the state’s energy needs in the future.
It’s a shame because Texas conservatives have every reason to be proud of the way our state unlocked this natural resource to provide huge amounts of cheap energy and create thousands of jobs. No other state is close to Texas in wind production. We have installed capacity for three times the wind energy of Iowa, which is No. 2 in the country. Texans can thank George W. Bush for getting us really rolling with wind energy and Perry for nurturing it along.
In today’s age of Twitter politics, that’s all but forgotten now, and wind is this election season’s whipping boy.
Candidates aren’t just calling for the state to eliminate resources to support the wind energy industry, some want to take steps that would all but disable it. We’ve even heard calls to prohibit private landowners from leasing property to wind operators. Talk about government interference.
There are smart reasons to be concerned about the role that renewable energy — and in Texas that means wind — plays in the broader energy landscape. As the Dallas Federal Reserve noted in an August 2021 paper, renewable energy now accounts for a quarter of all energy consumption in the state, with almost all of that being wind-generated power. That is up from just 8% in 2010, a clear indication of how quickly the industry has grown and how valuable it is to providing the state with clean, cheap electricity.
All of that production has an impact on the sources of supply. As wind generation has increased, the incentive to invest in other sources of production has decreased. That would be fine if the wind always blew or if we didn’t have extreme weather that spikes demand.
But the wind doesn’t always blow, and it doesn’t always blow at the right time — during the heat of the day, for example. Meanwhile, we are experiencing not only more extreme weather that spikes demand but also population growth that is going to keep demand high for a long time to come.
None of this is a good reason to punish the wind industry.
Yet that is exactly how it is being treated on the campaign trail and very likely will be treated in the coming legislative session if we aren’t careful. That will not help Texas address its long-term energy needs, and smart conservatives better figure out how to avoid letting the political rhetoric turn into actual policy in Austin.
In the last legislative session, a poorly considered effort from state Sen. George Schwertner, R-Georgetown, would have larded new fees on solar and wind energy producers for ancillary grid service costs traditionally borne by consumers, not generators.
A consortium of major businesses, from GE to Amazon to Bank of America, implored the state not to enact that provision of a major energy reform bill. Cooler heads prevailed, and the provision was not in the final bill, although the bill did empower the Public Utility Commission to allocate ancillary services costs “in a manner consistent with cost-causation principles.” You can read that as potentially assigning them to renewable energy producers.
A smarter approach for conservatives is to recognize the enormous value the wind industry provides to Texas and then turn to addressing the lack of investment in thermal production — especially natural gas power plants. Given our growth and the likelihood that more extreme weather is on the way, Texas is going to need both.
We should also work toward becoming a leader in power storage solutions. Even as we are an international leader in wind power, the state is also set to substantially increase solar capacity, which today is a fraction of the total power supply. But without better power storage, the problem renewables present will be hard to address even as supply of renewable energy increases.
There’s a role for the Legislature to play in helping Texas get to a secure energy future faster.
Unfortunately, that isn’t what Texas Republican candidates are selling to voters now. Let’s hope the bad politics doesn’t spoil a Texas triumph.
The Dallas Morning News
