The New York Times recently covered the big reliability and cost benefits solar power is bringing to Texas’ electricity grid, despite the socialist efforts of the state’s Republicans to prop up coal and natural gas. From the New York Times:

Strafed by powerful storms and superheated by a dome of hot air, Texas has been enduring a dangerous early heat wave this week that has broken temperature records and strained the state’s independent power grid.

But the lights and air conditioning have stayed on across the state, in large part because of an unlikely new reality in the nation’s premier oil and gas state: Texas is fast becoming a leader in solar power.

The amount of solar energy generated in Texas has doubled since the start of last year. And it is set to roughly double again by the end of next year, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Already, the state rivals California in how much power it gets from commercial solar farms, which are sprouting across Texas at a rapid pace, from the baked-dry ranches of West Texas to the booming suburbs southwest of Houston.

Bloomberg News is reporting that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy promised President Joe Biden to pursue permitting reform for energy projects, after the issue was largely dropped from an agreement to lift the debt ceiling:

While the outcome signaled a win for progressives who oppose broad changes to a bedrock environmental law, McCarthy said the continuing effort would include a range of energy issues. He said he pledged to Biden to continue working with the White House and Democrats “because we need energy — all forms of energy, especially for our grid — to double.”

“We made a commitment that we’re not stopping now,” he told reporters at the US Capitol on Sunday. “That would also deal with transmission, it would deal with pipelines, and others. I had that conversation with the president yesterday and with the White House.”

Utilities across the country use money collected from customers’ monthly bills to fund political campaigns and lobbying efforts, often with the goal of blocking climate progress. But in Colorado, that’s about to change. Last week, the state legislature passed the country’s most comprehensive bill to prevent utilities from using customer funds to support political activities.

The legislation was approved on May 8 by the state Senate after clearing the state House two days prior, and it’s expected to be signed by Governor Jared Polis (D) soon. It will prohibit investor-owned utilities from charging their customers — known as ratepayers — for membership dues in trade associations, lobbying expenses, or any other activities influencing legislation, ballot measures, and other regulatory actions. It will also bar utilities from spending ratepayer money on political advertising or any messaging intended to boost the utility’s brand.

A federal jury convicted Larry Householder, the former Speaker of the Ohio House, and Matthew Borges, the former chair of the Ohio Republican Party for their participation in a racketeering conspiracy.

In announcing the March 9 conviction, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio described “nearly $61 million in bribes paid to a 501(c)(4) entity to pass and uphold a billion-dollar nuclear plant bailout.” Householder and Borges face up to 20 years in prison.

“As presented by the trial team, Larry Householder illegally sold the statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the great people of Ohio he was elected to serve,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker. “Matt Borges was a willing co-conspirator, who paid bribe money for insider information to assist Householder. Through its verdict today, the jury reaffirmed that the illegal acts committed by both men will not be tolerated and that they should be held accountable.”

The group Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation this week highlighted updates to a 2022 report – “The Impact of Renewables in ERCOT” – showing that the availability of wind and solar power in the state’s energy market saved Texas ratepayers over $11 billion in 2022.

The original October 2022 report by Joshua Rhodes of Ideasmiths, quantified the impact of renewables in ERCOT on wholesale clearing prices and avoided fuel costs, water use, and emissions by comparing how the market would have performed with and without wind and solar from 2010 to August 2022.

A leading energy service provider is looking to expand its rollout of virtual power plant services with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Sunnova, one of the country’s largest residential solar providers, has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission showing that it is looking to progress its buildout of virtual power plants (VPP) through a $3.3 billion loan from the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Loan Program Office.

Per the Department of Energy, VPPs are “generally considered a connected aggregation of distributed energy resource (DER) technologies, offer deeper integration of renewables and demand flexibility, which in turn offers more Americans cleaner and more affordable power.”

The Dallas Morning News is wondering why Texas legislators would target renewable energy production when it has been such a stellar success in the Lone Star State. It’s a good question. Clean energy has brought more affordable energy to Texans, improved the state’s environmental performance, created jobs, and generated economic activity.

While Texas lawmakers aggressively defend fossil fuels and propose billions in new public spending for natural gas plants, largely with a goal of improving reliability on the electric grid. they’re also targeting renewables, proposing limits on growth and pushing for new requirements that would drive up costs for wind and solar power.

Renewable Energy World is out with an article on the impending implementation of the California Public Utility Commission’s decision to slash net metering rates and the response of one company to continue to encourage adoption of rooftop solar by offering a free battery to consumers as an incentive.

From Renewable Energy World:

California is one month away from implementing a policy that reduces how much customers with solar panels are paid for surplus power sent to the grid. The process, dubbed NEM 3.0, moves the state from a net metering framework to net billing, which incentivizes co-locating battery storage with solar systems.

In response to the policy change which takes effect April 15, Houston-based Sunnova said it would offer a "free" battery, which it valued at $8,000, to new customers.

According to the publication Business North Carolina, a forthcoming report to South Carolina’s General Assembly on electricity market reforms will likely also affect policymakers in North Carolina, as it urges an attempt to create or join a multi-state grid operator “as quickly as possible.”

In 2020 South Carolina passed legislation that looked at the potential benefits of encouraging more competition in energy markets. The draft report, commissioned by South Carolina legislators following the passage of that bill, stresses that the effort should involve both North and South Carolina and claims it could save customers in South Carolina alone upwards of $362 million a year. North Carolina has almost double the number of residents as South Carolina.

Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill are encouraging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate vertically integrated electric utilities for abusing their monopoly power and hindering the transition to clean energy.

 In a February 6 letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the group of senators argued that monopoly utilities have engaged in “questionable practices” to stifle competition and undercut technologies such as rooftop solar, threatening the successful implementation of President Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act. The letter is signed by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Read the full letter here.

Join the Energy Choice Coalition and Our Energy Policy on Wednesday, March 1, for an online discussion on competition in electricity markets and addressing the issues of consumer costs, and supply reliability and resiliency. Panelists include Robert Dillon of the Energy Choice Coalition, Emily Fisher of the Edison Electric Institute, and Nick Loris of C3 Solutions. The discussion will be moderated by Todd Snitchler of the Electric Power Supply Association. The discussion kicks off at noon EST on March 1. Don’t miss it! Register here:

Check out the Knowledge Problem for another great post by economist Lynne Kiesling on competitive electricity markets. In her latest commentary, Kiesling looks at the state of retail energy choice and why it has not kept pace with increases in competition in wholesale electricity markets.

“Lots of possible theories exist for such weak competition — high customer acquisition costs, incumbent default service contracts as an entry barrier, regulation-mandated full depreciation of long-lived incumbent assets as a barrier to innovation, customer indifference, to name a few.”

Georgia state Sen. Jason Anavitarte has introduced SB 210, in the Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2023 in the Georgia Assembly to expand community solar and net metering in the Peach State.

The legislation adds to Georgia’s Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act of 2001, the expansion of the solar market by the Georgia Public Service Commission in 2013, and adoption of the Georgia Solar Free-Market Act of 2015.

Solar Power World reports that the legislation would update monthly net metering, create a nonprofit community solar program, and enhance access to consumer usage data.

The bill would allow tax-exempt customers, such as governments and non-profits, to aggregate demand from multiple locations and purchase solar power from generating facilities under 3 MW.

Rising energy prices are prompting consumers across Pennsylvania to reconsider their monopoly utility’s default service and look for better options based on the lowest price and customer service. The Pacific Research Institute and the Energy and Policy Institute recently documented several incidences of consumers being subjected to skyrocketing electricity bills due to mistakes (or worse) by monopoly utilities.

PPL Electric Utilities, a monopoly utility serving eastern and central Pennsylvania, recently sent estimated bills to their default service customers because a “technical system issue” that prevented them from accessing usage data. Many consumers experienced sticker shock when they received bills based on “estimated electricity usage” that were hundreds of dollars more than expected.

PPL Electric Utilities’ Price to Compare increased by nearly 18 percent at the beginning of December and has nearly doubled over the past two years. Many customers are paying significantly more than they need to for electricity. PPL hit customers with an 18 percent rate increase on Dec. 1, but some people received bills that were 50 percent higher than expected. The Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate said more than 795,000 customers were affected by the billing issue.

President Joe Biden’s ambitious post-pandemic recovery plan includes a historic push to electrify much of America’s economy and meet nearly all the resulting increases in demand for power – from transportation to manufacturing – with renewable energy.

The transition from fossil fuels to cleaner alternatives in response to climate change has become the biggest spending priority of the Biden presidency, including dedicating more than half of last year’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to climate and clean energy investments.

The IRA’s $375 billion in clean energy incentives is in addition to billions in climate-related spending approved by Congress in the 2021 infrastructure law, CHIPS and Science Act, and other bills since Biden entered the White House with the pledge to halve the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, from 2005 levels, by the end of the decade.

But while the generous use of the public purse was feasible as long as Democrats maintained majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans taking control of the House in January changed the outlook on Capitol Hill significantly.

In recent years, it has become increasingly challenging to get transmission projects built for a wide range of reasons, including permitting delays, NIMBYism, disincentives to develop projects between different utility territories, and lack of coordination between states. 

As a result, there is now more proposed generation capacity and associated projects in the interconnection queues of the independent system operators than ever before, the vast majority of which are wind and solar projects. Part of the reason for the delay in the development of more renewable energy is that there is insufficient transmission capacity in the areas where these projects are being proposed.

Ari Peskoe, the Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, makes two suggestions to resolve these issues. One is to give states more authority over transmission planning and promote competition in the development of transmission infrastructure rather than letting the incumbent utilities build it themselves. The second is establishing a minimum set of benefits for transmission projects to be approved rather than just a single reason, such as improved reliability. Other reasons could include reduced emissions, increased resilience, and increased flexibility.