Over the past few months, the Texas Senate passed three bills that could’ve devastated the state’s nation-leading renewable energy rollout — but clean energy appears to have dodged the bullet.
The first of those bills would establish new fees, setback requirements, and other permitting regulations on utility-scale wind and solar development, even though fossil-fuel plants don’t face the same restrictions. The second would require large renewables installations to buy gas generation as a backup.
And the third would ensure all renewable power development came with a side of fossil fuels, as it directed that 50% of all new power plant capacity added to the state’s grid come from dispatchable resources other than battery storage. That would have amounted to a gas mandate: Since solar panels and wind turbines can only produce power under certain conditions (sun shining, wind blowing, you know the drill), they can only be dispatchable power sources if batteries are involved. An earlier version of the bill explicitly said 50% of new capacity would have to come from gas.
These bills would have seriously slowed Texas’ deployment of solar, batteries, and wind power, which are shattering power-generation records in the state and helping its grid withstand extreme weather and meet surging electricity demand. The legislation would have caused reliability to fall and utility bills to soar, according to an April report from Aurora Energy Research.
But the Texas House’s session is set to end on June 2, and none of those three bills have been scheduled for consideration. This doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t resurface at some point, but they’re at least dead as standalone bills for this session, Doug Lewin writes in his Texas Energy and Power newsletter.
There are growing signs that these sorts of restrictions on renewables aren’t popular among many Texas Republicans and business interests. Recent polling from Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation shows widespread Republican support for renewables, while even the Texas Oil and Gas Association allied with renewable power generators to oppose the state House’s companion to the Senate’s bill requiring gas backup for clean energy.
The Trump administration took its pro-coal agenda to a new level last Friday, ordering a retiring Michigan coal plant to stay open through at least the end of August. The J.H. Campbell plant was supposed to shut down tomorrow, and Michigan utility Consumers Energy had been working since at least 2021 to do so. But the administration contended that the Midwest faces an “energy emergency” and needs the plant to guarantee power reliability.
Clean energy advocates, consumer watchdogs, and even Michigan’s top energy regulator disagree. “We currently produce more energy in Michigan than needed,” Michigan Public Service Commission Chair Dan Scripps said in a statement. “The unnecessary recent order from the U.S. Department of Energy will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses across the Midwest.”
Trump’s nuclear orders probably won’t outweigh cuts
