Legislators in the state, which leads the nation in building solar and wind, have circulated about 60 proposals to curb renewable development and boost gas.
Source: Politico on March 21, 2025
No one builds renewables like Texas.
In the first month of 2025, Texas installed more renewables and batteries than 41 other states did in all of 2024. No state in America has added more in wind, solar and batteries over the last decade.
But whether the Texas renewables boom continues is an open question.
A bill passed by the Texas Senate this week would effectively require renewable developers to invest in dispatchable generators like natural gas plants to provide backup to new wind and solar facilities.
The measure’s supporters contend it is needed to ensure grid reliability and counteract federal renewable subsidies. Its detractors maintain it would crush renewable development in the state, send electric bills soaring, and make it difficult for Texas to keep up with rising electricity demand from new factories and data centers.
The bill is an updated version of a proposal that cleared the Senate last year but stalled in the House. Its chances of passing the House, where there is no companion legislation, are unclear.
But clean energy advocates and industry analysts are bracing for an onslaught of anti-renewable bills, with many already working their way through the state House in Austin.
“What this bill, and several others like it, are trying to do is to suppress the development and use of new renewables and batteries across all of Texas, even though these are the very resources that have made our grid more reliable and bailed us out in a number of very intense grid conditions over the last few years,” said Alison Silverstein, a Texas-based energy consultant who served as an adviser to former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Pat Wood III.
Texas’ power grid is a national bellwether for the energy transition.
The home of America’s oil and gas industry has long looked to fossil fuels to power its grid. In 2024, gas accounted for about 45 percent of power generation for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator that serves about 90 percent of the state. It also remains the country’s top coal-consuming state, despite a wave of coal plant retirement in recent years.
But the state’s grid has been undergoing rapid transformation in recent years. Wind accounted for almost a quarter of ERCOT’s power generation in 2024, far outpacing the 13 percent from coal, while solar contributed another 10 percent, according to the grid operator.
Solar and batteries, in particular, have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Texas installed 7.3 gigawatts of solar in 2024, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures. That was more than double the amount in Florida, which ranked second in utility-scale solar installations last year with 3 GW. Meanwhile, the 3.9 GW of new Texas battery installations edged out the 3.7 GW of battery capacity that came online in California.
Concerns over cost increases
Grid experts say the renewable boom has stabilized Texas’ electric grid, even as the state set new records for power demand amid record-hot temperatures and a sizzling economy. Jim Robb, the country’s top grid reliability official, recently credited solar and batteries with “carrying the day” during a searing heat wave in 2023.
But such statements have done little to assuage the concerns of Texas lawmakers, who have focused on building new natural gas plants in the wake of a 2021 winter storm that led to widespread blackouts in the state. In 2023, the state established a fund to offer lower interest loans to gas plant developers. They point to events like a February cold snap, when natural gas generation surged to meet record winter electricity demand, as evidence of the need for new gas.
It was against that backdrop that state Sen. Phil King, a Republican, proposed Senate Bill 388. Requiring renewable developers to obtain credits from dispatchable generators like gas would create a new revenue stream, incentivizing the development of more dispatchable facilities, King told a hearing of the Business and Commerce Committee earlier this month.
“SB 388 also helps counteract distortions by federal and state subsidies that have resulted and are resulting in an overbuild of intermittent generation,” he told the committee.
The Senate passed the bill in an 18-13 vote Wednesday, with three Republicans voting against the bill and one Democrat voting in favor.
Clean energy advocates say the bill has the ability to upend the Texas economy. Electricity demand is growing quickly in the state amid population growth, an influx of new manufacturers and the growth of data centers, making new power generation essential. Yet natural gas developers face a multiyear backlog for new turbines, which makes it difficult to quickly build new gas facilities to meet demand.
They argue that wind, solar and batteries are essential for keeping up with demand.
“With all the different growth opportunities the state is facing, this would penalize new generation at a time when we need every megawatt we can get,” said Michael Jewell, a lobbyist who represents renewable developers.
S.B. 388 has attracted opposition from some conservatives who say it could distort the state’s power markets. The influential conservative group, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, urged lawmakers to vote against the bill, writing it “could increase electricity costs for consumers as utilities pass on compliance expenses.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the state of the grid or the fact that there’s some problem, I think it has to do with kind of a larger culture war against certain resources.”
Still, the bill is just one of roughly 60 anti-renewable proposals circulating Austin this year, said Judd Messer, vice president of the Advanced Power Alliance, a clean energy trade group. Especially concerning is a proposal that would impose additional permitting requirements on wind and solar facilities, he said.
“The sheer volume of bills filed this session I’m not sure I could have imagined,” Messer said. He attributed the onslaught of anti-renewable legislation to a broader culture war, where renewables are pitted against oil and gas.
In fact, Messer argued, the two industries benefit one another. Low-cost renewables benefit the oil and gas industry, which needs cheap electricity to power its pump jacks and compressor stations.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the state of the grid or the fact that there’s some problem,” he said. “I think it has to do with kind of a larger culture war against certain resources.”