Austin News

Several renewable energy companies and groups registered and testified against Texas Senate Bill 1278, a measure that will require renewable energy companies to pay for the costs they impose on the market when they fail to produce the expected levels of energy.

The list of groups and businesses that testified against SB 1278 include Advanced Power Alliance, Texas Solar Power Association and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. Organizations that have registered but not to testify include Onward Energy, Scout Clean Energy, Copenhagen Infrastructure Services Co., Texas Impact, Solar Energy Industries Association, Pattern Energy, Duke Energy Renewables, Texas Advance Energy Business Alliance, Environment Texas, EDP Renewables, Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation, Engia and Apex Clean Energy.

Some of the renewable businesses and organizations that registered to testify against SB 1278 are not even based in Texas, let alone the United States. The Sierra Club is headquartered in Oakland, California. International companies registered against the bill include Copenhagen Infrastructure Services, headquartered in Denmark, and EDP Renewables is headquartered in Spain.

The legislation also aims to address the reliability issues and limitations associated with intermittent energy resources, such as wind and solar renewables, by ensuring adequate generation capacity, particularly when the sun is obscured by clouds and the wind is low.

"The more wind and solar you get onto the grid, the more problems you're going to have with reliability," Bill Peacock, policy director at Energy Alliance, previously told the Lone Star Standard.

According to an article in America's Power, renewable energies often receive government subsidies that artificially keep them afloat, despite a lack of reliability and inefficiency.

Additionally, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that onshore wind energy costs increased 43% between 2010 and 2020, with solar capacity cost savings increasing 82% over the same period.

After such drastic reductions in renewable energy costs, the industry has found that wind and solar subsidies are no longer needed.

“In most parts of the world today, renewables are the lowest-cost source of new power generation. As costs for solar and wind technologies continue falling, this will become the case in even more countries," an assessment by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) states.

As a result of these developments, America's Power says the wind and solar industries have matured to the point where they can compete with traditional and conventional power generators in the United States.