As Texas leans more toward green energy sources, the Institute for Energy Research (IER) recently analyzed federal energy land lease policies and noted that an overreliance on renewable energy has contributed to California's extremely high energy prices.
"President Biden’s Department of the Interior reduced the number of oil and gas drilling permits it has approved on federal lands by 75% from April to August of last year and has continued to grant approval at the lower monthly rate," a recent IER report said. "Yet, that same Biden department announced that it would vastly speed up the approval of renewable energy permits, authorizing an additional 10 gigawatts of renewable energy projects on U.S. public land by the end of 2023, which would nearly double current permitted capacity.
"This reliance upon inherently intermittent renewable energy is at the root cause of California’s soaring electricity prices, which are 70% higher than the national average."
The Austin Journal recently reported that wind and solar produced a record 34% of the power dispatched by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) during the first quarter of 2022. Together, those two sources accounted for 71% of generation increases during the quarter.
The average price of electricity for residential Texas customers in January 2022 was 12.24 cents per kilowatt hour, a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said. In the same month in California, the cost was 23.58 cents per kilowatt hour.
Texas may also be heading toward high energy prices, energy expert Brian Gitt noted.
"Texas seems to be following in California’s footsteps with regards to overbuilding solar and wind farms and underinvesting in baseload thermal power plants," Gitt told the Austin Journal. "Since 2006 about $66 billion was spent building wind and solar capacity in Texas, and energy developers received $24 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Flawed market design encouraged building new solar and wind generation capacity to collect subsidies instead of ensuring grid reliability and resilience."