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Renewable Energy In Texas

FEATURED FOCUS: Subsection (m) Corrupts Consumer Choice by taking away your right to choose green power to increase renewable energy in Texas.

Public Citizen’s Texas office promotes public policies that replace dirty and dangerous energy source such as coal, oil and nuclear power with clean, renewable sources of power such as wind, solar and biomass.

Texas'current role as a leading producer of renewable leader is due in large part to ongoing efforts by the Texas office of Public Citizen. Many of the world’s largest wind power projects operate atop mesas in West Texas and on the plains in the Texas Panhandle. Several wind power projects in or near the Gulf Coast also are in the works.

At the same time, Texas has barely tapped into its potential to be a world leader in the production of renewable energy.

In summer 2005, Public Citizen’s long-standing efforts to develop more renewable energy in Texas paid off when the state legislature voted to double the state’s renewable energy goal. Texas already had one of the nation’s most successful Renewable Portfolio Standards, which calls for the state to obtain about three percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2009.

The new goal set by the legislature requires Texas obtain about five percent of its electricity from renewables by 2015. The legislation also sets a long-range target for the state to get 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2025. Public Citizen already is working to set the stage for an even bigger increase in the state’s renewable goal in future legislative sessions.

An important component of the legislation that increased the state’s renewable goal is a requirement that 500 megawatts of the new 5,880 megawatt goal come from renewable energy sources other than wind power.  This set-aside will help promote solar power and biomass in Texas and should prove a boon to farmers and ranchers who can realize new revenue sources from use of crop and animal waste to produce energy.

The renewable energy legislation passed in summer 2005 also streamlined the ability of the Public Utility Commission to order construction of new transmission lines to meet the state’s renewable energy goal.  Development of more wind power in West Texas has been stymied by the lack of transmission lines to move wind power eastward to the cities.

This boost to the state’s renewable energy goal will generate new taxes for public schools, create jobs, clean up air pollution and lessen reliance in Texas on expensive natural gas to produce electricity.

»	Impacts Of Wind Farms On Avian Wildlife

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