Officials call on Texas to go big on solar

Environment Texas to distribute 46,000 flyers on solar energy

Environment Texas

AUSTIN – Thirty civic leaders from El Paso to Houston today called for the state to generate 20 percent of its electricity from solar power within a decade. The bi-partisan group, which includes the Mayors of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Georgetown and county officials in Pecos, Nueces and El Paso counties, wrote Gov. Abbott and urged him to “make solar energy a key element of Texas’ energy future.” The non-profit Environment Texas Research and Policy Center also announced a plan to distribute door to door 46,000 flyers about how Texas families can go solar.

“Texas’ time in the sun has arrived,” said Luke Metzger, Director of Environment Texas. “Solar energy is no longer a niche technology, but stands ready to generate huge amounts of energy cleanly and affordably.”

Texas electric grid operator ERCOT projects that under a business-as-usual scenario, more than 10,000 megawatts (MW) of solar will be installed in Texas by 2029 (approximately 6 percent of energy). However, the officials wrote to Abbott, “recent progress shows we can take it to the next level.” Solar capacity grew an average of 84 percent per year between 2010 and 2013. Environment Texas calculated annual growth could actually slow to 61 percent and solar would still provide 20 percent of the state’s power by 2025. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Texas boasts the nation’s largest solar resources and has the potential to generate through solar 170 times the amount of energy that the state consumes each year.

Plummeting costs, increasing public concern over global warming and energy independence, and technological innovation have all played a role in spurring the growth of the pollution-free energy source.  The city of Georgetown, Texas recently signed a contract to receive 100 percent of its electricity from solar and wind power, at prices cheaper than fossil fuels. In January, Rice University signed an agreement to purchase power from a 22 MW solar farm in Pecos County without raising rates, “the first time off-site solar power is being delivered to a commercial entity on a short-term contract, without state or utility incentives in a deregulated market.” In April, the El Paso City Council approved a plan to build 20 MW of solar at Fort Bliss and the Austin City Council approved a request for proposals of up to 600 MW of additional solar energy to power the Capital city.

Environment Texas noted that achieving 20 percent solar would put Texas more than halfway to the benchmark set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which requires cuts in power plant carbon pollution of 39 percent in Texas. The group pointed to several actions Gov. Abbott could take to help Texas go big on solar, including installing photovoltaic panels on the Governor’s mansion (it already uses solar to heat water) and using the bully pulpit to help encourage Texas utilities, businesses and families to go solar. The Governor could also oppose SB 931 to repeal the state’s renewable electricity law and direct the Public Utility Commision to set a state-wide net metering or value of solar policy and a framework for community solar in regulated and deregulated markets.

Environment Texas Research and Policy Center announced their staff are going door to door distributing 46,000 flyers educating Texans about solar energy and directing them to www.GoSolarTx.org, a new Environment Texas Research and Policy Center website showing Texans how they can bring solar to their home or community.

“Affordable energy is now renewable energy,” says Kaiba White of Public Citizen’s Texas office.  “The more tools the State of Texas offers to quicken the transition away from inefficient fossil fuel power plant to affordable wind and solar, the less electric consumers are going to pay.”

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