At a hearing on a Public Utility Commission (PUC) energy grid report, Texas State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-TX18) noted how the evidence specifically shows that the coal and natural gas sectors are shrinking, potentially putting the Texas grid in harm's way.
"We're paying a lot of money for uncertainty," the senator said. "I don't think our constituents are going to be real happy about that. It's just going to cost them more. The part that reduced the most which is coal and natural gas. Nuclear grew not at all and wind grew some."
On Nov. 10, a report was released by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and was written by the consulting firm E3. E3 performed a quantitative and qualitative review on a range of proposed market designs that produced the report. It provides an independent assessment of potential long-term market design reform options to promote the supply of dispatchable generation and focus on reliability as outlined in Phase 2 of the Blueprint published by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) in December 2021.
Under the direction of the PUCT and its staff, E3 and Astrape Consulting developed and analyzed six specific market design options and compared the impacts of each against a status quo energy-only market design.
Last year in a formal letter, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Public Utility Commission to take immediate action to improve reliability of the Texas power grid, including streamline incentives within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market to foster the development and maintenance of adequate and reliable sources of power, like natural gas, coal and nuclear power.
The governor ordered ERCOT to accelerate the development of transmission projects that increase connectivity between existing or new dispatchable generation plants and areas of need.
The nonprofit group Life:Powered has noted the problems the Texas energy grid is currently facing has been predictable due to an over-investment in unreliable generation and under-investment in reliability measures. More than $60 billion was invested in solar and wind energy generation since 2011 and those sources only produced 1 GW of power during 2021's Winter Storm Uri. Any measures to protect wind and solar are counterproductive if they aren't done in sync with market reforms.
Kolkhorst was first elected to represent the 18th District of Texas in 2014. Before that she served seven consecutive terms in the Texas House of Representatives. She is a sixth-generation Texan and attended Texas Christian University.