That bill would require such “non-dispatchable” sources - in other words, wind and solar - to pay more for state services like building and maintaining the grid. The federal tax credits “distort” Texas’s electricity market by giving “less reliable generators an unfair market advantage over reliable generators,” Senate Republicans wrote in analysis of Senate Bill 7, a linchpin of the package. State GOP members cast the state’s growth in renewables as a problem - and one that federal subsidies are set to exacerbate. In his statement on Thursday, Patrick said that since the deadly winter storm of 2021, in which gas-power generation froze across the state, “I have been abundantly clear that we must bring new dispatchable generation (primarily new natural gas plants) online as soon as possible to make sure that Texans have reliable power under any circumstance,” Patrick said. “It was meant to provide a ‘jump start,’ and was not meant to be a permanent mandate or subsidy once these technologies became cost-competitive,” they added. The program was meant “to support a emerging renewable generation industry,” the bill authors wrote. That growth in renewables suggest that support for the industry is no longer needed, GOP legislators wrote in their summary of Senate Bill 2014, which would end the renewable energy credit program. Opposing the bill was a strange-bedfellows coalition of power utilities, environmental groups and electric coops - groups that generally have little in common. The new package “levels the playing field between dispatchable and renewable energy sources,” Patrick said. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who presides over the state Senate, cast fossil fuels as the underdog in the contest to ensure electricity to the state’s rapidly-growing cities. While the state is by far the nation’s largest emitter of fossil fuels, new renewable electricity is cheaper and often more attractive than new gas power plants - particularly with the 30 percent renewable energy tax credits passed by Democrats last September. Plus, wind and solar power has been crucial to keeping Texans’ lights on through bouts of record demand, which have been fueled by both rising populations and record temperatures.īut while blackouts have fallen in conjunction with the rise in renewable generation, Texas Republicans have largely blamed wind and solar energy for the state’s electric woes - and cast “dispatchable” natural gas plants as the solution. The package acts as a counterpoint to the shifting reality of Texas’ energy landscape. The effort seeks to establish the long-term primacy of “dispatchable” electricity - in practice, gas powered plants - over renewables.
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