Ft Worth Times

Brent Bennett of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who holds a Ph.D., recently wrote an article arguing that Texas needs to prioritize reliability and stability over renewability for the state's power grid.

Last February, extreme weather conditions during Winter Storm Uri rendered wind and solar energy generators completely powerless. The state's power grid was completely overwhelmed by a massive spike in demand for energy and resulting power outages left 4 million Texans in the cold and more than one hundred dead. 

Critics argue that improper winterization of wind and solar power generators are to blame, but some experts say that the intermittent nature of wind and solar power would have made blackouts inevitable even in ideal situations, according to Life:Powered. 

Less than one-third of Texas' power needs come from wind and solar power.

“Even if every generator that was online the night of Feb. 14 had continued operating at full tilt, we still would have seen widespread and lasting outages,” Bennett writes.

In an interview with the Dallas Express, Robert Michaels, a retired Cal State Fullerton economics professor and energy analyst, said he believes subsidies for wind and solar "factor into" the recent issues of reliability and volatility on the Texas electric grid. According to a report from America's Power, renewable energy resources — primarily wind and solar — have received more than $100 billion in subsidies since 2018.

“I think they factor into it, not so much because of the things going down or staying up. Rather what's happened is you've had a lot more investment in plants, which by their nature are less reliable -- intermittent sources than they would say they were,” Michaels told Dallas Express. “Normally in a power system, you add some extra generation capacity, you're going to be strengthening it. Here the problem is when you add intermittent capacity like wind or solar, you could very well be weakening the grid because it basically gives it another contingency that might go out."

The problem is not isolated to Texas. California has also increased its reliance on renewables and faces issues of grid dependability, reported DC Business Daily. The state has resorted to imposing rolling blackouts during times when the grid cannot keep up with consumer demand.

“The Texas Legislature should create clear guidelines for statewide electric reliability and ensure that California-style blackouts don’t become the norm here," Bennett wrote. "Targeted and efficient market reforms can begin to solve this problem if legislators and the Public Utility Commission are willing to ask the hard questions about Winter Storm Uri – and learn the proper lessons from it.”

Research from the Energy Alliance shows that price and energy distortions caused by the rapid growth of renewable energy generators are significantly decreasing the reliability of the Texas energy grid.

Electric Reliability Council of Texas data indicates that in the past decade, wind energy capacity has leapfrogged coal and nuclear, while solar has more than tripled capacity in the same time period.

Despite billions of dollars in subsidies since 2010, renewable energy still produces only 4% of energy across the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.