The Legislative Commission in Texas ended a session every two years Without passing a large number of bills He could kill the state The solar energy sector and batteriesThus, the ability to maintain Texas The network operates in the harsh weather And high demand for electricity.
A law that can enhance the reliability of electricity in the state has passed by encouraging the construction of more microGRIDS-small gas, solar energy, and batteries that can be built quickly. Last week, legislators in Texas Ear of a fund worth $ 1.8 billion for a long time To support the deployment of microGrid in hospitals, the homes of the elderly, water treatment stations, police stations, firefighters, and other critical facilities throughout the state.
the Texas Reserve Package Program Wait for funding since 2023, when it was created as Part of a broader legislative package. The aim of this is to help Texas protect themselves from the severe emergencies that the weather drives, such as catastrophic power outages During the 2021 winter stormOr Wide interruption after a hurricane in 2024.
Labor firmly failed to declare $ 1.8 billion in financing MicroGRID in 2023. Instead, the country has advanced $ 5 billion to the Texas Energy Fund, which provides low -use loans to widespread gas stations developers. This program Struggle. It was one project for financing I found it fraudulent. The others were Loan. and Many projects Ownership Start from the disputeAnd developers also deal with himself Lack of gas turbine and High costs Which opposes gas construction operations throughout the country.
This year, legislators recently agreed to fund microGRID, which is part of the remaining $ 5 in spending on energy funds in Texas officially authorized during the session just transferred. Doug Lewin, head of Stoic Energy, and its author, said Texas newsletter for energy and energy.
He said: “This money is supposed to start now – and I think this puts us at the upper level of the countries of MicroGrid.”
Of The bills that failed This session is facing the opposition Of the groups of the environment, business and consumers They were two – SB 388 and SB 715 -This would have forced solar energy, wind and new batteries to pay for a huge and equivalent amount of new capacity of fossil power plants.
The problem with such policies is not only fallacy Building more gas power plants It guarantees a more reliable networkIndustry experts say. This is also that companies simply Gas power plants cannot be built quickly enough To meet the prosperous energy needs, not only in Texas, but All over the country. Since these bills would have requested the construction of gas alongside renewable energy sources – and because building power plants is dangerously restricted – the legislation would have served as a mass on many developments of solar energy, wind and new batteries that are worth.
“I think one of the most important things that occurred in this session is that the business alliance on a wide range is truly communicating with anyone who listens to the fact that these policies trying to restrict the development of renewable energy sources are not useful,” said Loulene.
He said that low -cost energy from renewable energy sources and batteries “is a large deal for manufacturers, industrial customers, and the oil and gas industry that operates outside diesel generators for decades and is now communicating with the network.”
MicroGrids make it happen
For years until now, Lewin has been calling on state leaders to focus on helping customers to save energy and maintain energy flow during hurricanes, heat waves and winter storms. He believes MicroGRIDS is a good way to do this.
When the broader network works well, facilities equipped with microbes can use solar energy, batteries and generators to reduce their use of the network energy. But when the network drops or faces serious pressure, these facilities can rely on these resources to continue running.
MicroGrids can also help meet energy demand from homes, companies and factories, especially databases that chase the mutation of artificial intelligence that forms a A huge share of future pregnancy growth He said the expectations. In April, the Electrical Trustees Council in Texas expects that in April that the demand for electricity is peak More than twice in the next five years. The number of data centers that ends up to Texas will eventually set the amount of new energy that the state really needs.
Lewin said the MicroGrid program limits individual projects to no more than 2.5 megawatts. This is much smaller than hundreds of megawatts than the capacity that can come from the gas power plant. But what the microGRID projects that you lack in the size that compensates it for the speed of construction, and many smaller reserve energy projects will do the demand for more than the large energy stations that take five years or more for construction. This is especially true if it is MicroGRIDS It is located in the same data centers.
To clarify this, the data centers are not the target of the backup power package program. Instead, the fund has been created to help sites that cannot afford to the site of the backup on the site, as explained Rock. Houston -based MicroGRID operator is running 500 megawatts in grocery stores, trucks, and other adult energy customers in Texas. Enchanted Rock has also published gas generators in water facilities and irrigation areas, including the northeastern water purification factory in Houston.
Yu said: “The amount of $ 1.8 billion is a large amount of money, and more ambitious than the programs that we saw in other judicial states,” said. “But it is largely in line with the state’s policy to improve flexibility in critical facilities since Winter Storm URI”, which is what The authority knocked For more than 4.5 million people for up to a week in February 2021, which led to the death of an estimated 200 people and more than $ 100 billion in property damage.
Yu said that the enchanted Rock agents tend to be larger entities that can secure financing and determine the financial value of reserve energy generation clearly. He said that the $ 1.8 billion MicroGRID program “opens opportunities for customers who are not complicated, and they have nothing to do with this to pay this additional cost.”
The subsidized living facilities are special candidates for the state’s microscopic forms, given the extent of the power outages of the older adults or people with a medical risk. Alexa Shuiman, Deputy Office of the Secretary of Grievances in the long term, said the Public Utilities Committee in Texas in A. March statement More than 80,000 residents of the state -backed living facilities are at risk of stretch power outages, and that “the operators have been martyred because they are unable to stabilize the energy -saving power capacity in their locations.”
Yu refused to call any customers working with a charming rock with it to benefit from the box. “But there was a lot of attention from the critical facilities that you might want to take advantage of this. We have spoken to people in the homes of the elderly, living industries with help, low -income housing, and other critical infrastructure, in an attempt to enter the program.”
Enchanting Rock joined other backup service providers including Bloom Energy, Base Power, Cummins, GeneraC, MainSpring Energy and Power Secure as Yu called an unofficial group of similar companies to thinking. Flexibility of the dubbed network in Texas, Or gray for a short timeHe said that the coalition is working with the Texas Electrical Council and the Public Utilities Committee on the MicroGRID program of $ 1.8 billion.
Most of these companies focus on the power generation systems that fed the gas, whether this is The engines are like these charming rocks Uses, Linear generators from MainspringOr Fuel cells from energy flowers. Others specialize in Battery backup systems, as with the startup base capacityOr combine solar energy, batteries and energy control systems with generators, As with GeneRAC.
Yu said that the legislation that creates the program of backup power package in Texas allows projects to pressure up to $ 500 of government financing for each kilo of installed generation, and requires solar energy, batteries, or fossil gas or the generation feed by propane. But “it is not the proportions of this mixture.”
Various groups can provide more economics for different types of customers. Some may find that many solar panels are useful to lower daily facilities, while others may want to increase the generation of gas to the maximum covering of multi -day winter cuts, when solar energy batteries are less useful.
Yu added that the legislation that creates the program limits projects from playing actively in the network operator market programs, which means that the owners of MicroGrid will face restrictions on selling the energy they generate or the network balance services they can provide to the market.
However, this “leaves some fields for customers to take advantage of the assets of the value that exceeds the bit”, such as using solar energy to compensate for the power tool energy purchases. “This will be very important to make the economy work.”
