Yesterday, the House Energy Resources and Environmental Regulations committees held a joint hearing to consider the impact that federal caps on carbon emissions will have on Texas. While the committee largely focused on the potential for carbon capture and sequestration, Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger was invited to speak about renewable energy as a carbon reduction strategy. Read Luke's testimony below.
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Good afternoon Chairmen and members,
My name is Luke Metzger and I am the Director of Environment Texas. I’d like to talk to you about the role that renewable energy can play in both reducing carbon emissions in Texas and at the same time stimulating our economy.
First, I want to quickly review the role that renewable energy is already playing in reducing emissions. You’ll see from the first chart, that based on the decisions of the Texas Legislature and the PUC to invest in transmission lines out to the competitive renewable energy zones, that we stand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 27.5 million tons by 2012, about 10 percent of the total emissions from the electric sector. This investment has also created jobs all across Texas, as you’ll see on the second page titled ‘Industry’.
There have also been almost 60 bills filed so far to promote other renewable technologies such as solar, biomass, geothermal and small wind. You’ll see in the chart the estimated carbon reductions from some of those measures.
What this says is we can make a major reduction in carbon emissions while at the same time developing technologies that will help revitalize our economy, create jobs and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
I’d like to particularly highlight the role that solar energy can play for Texas. Last spring, more than 300 business leaders from across the country converged at the Texas capitol to discuss what it would take to develop a market for solar power in Texas. Those executives agreed that Texas has all the "right stuff" to become a world solar leader.
Rep. Legler, in your district sits MEMC Pasadena, the world’s largest supplier of solar-grade silicon. In fact the silicon produced at that facility is going into to photovoltaic panels the city of Austin is purchasing to contruct the largest solar pv array in America.
Chairman Strama, in your district sits Applied Materials, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of the equipment that makes solar panels. They aren’t yet produced that equipment at their Austin facility, but if you build a solar market here, I know they are interested.
Chairman Keffer, in your district is Barr Fabrication, which fabricates steel parts for oil field trailers, precision parts for wind turbines and recently produced 8600 steel braces for a 64 megawatt solar thermal power plant in Nevada.
Representatives Burnam, Veasey and Hancock, in Fort Worth you’ve got Entech Solar, a major solar manufacturer that has designed and manufactured solar systems around the nation, including 2MW systems for the Denver and Fresno Airports.
Clearly Texas has the trained workforce and infrastructure in place to help build a solar economy. And those companies I mentioned are just a few of the hundreds of companies in Texas who are already involved in the solar industry and are primed for growth. Add to that the millions of Texans who would love to put solar panels on their homes, businesses like HEB and Wal-Mart that would like to put solar on the miles and miles of their rooftops and the landowners in west Texas that would like to lease their land for large-scale solar projects (potentially co-located with wind turbines), and we’ve got ourselves all the raw materials of a solar powerhouse.
There a number of steps the Legislature should take this session to make that vision a reality. And I should stress this session. A number of states, including California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Colorado already have a head start, and with solar prices expected to drop significantly in the next couple of years, if we wait too long, we could miss out on a major economic driver for the 21st century.
So, what should you do? We’ve passed out to you a copy of a report called Wildcatting the Sun which summarizes the recommendations that came from the business leaders at last spring’s solar forum.
First, Texas should create a rebate program to make it easier for homes and businesses to install solar and other on-site renewable such as small wind and geothermal heat pumps. A few utilities in Texas already offer limited programs, including Austin Energy, Bryan Texas Utilities and most recently Oncor, which has launched a pilot program to help install about seven megawatts of solar. HB 278 by Rep. Anchia would set up a statewide rebate program that would lead to the installation of about 2000 megawatts of solar by the year 2020 – that’s the equivalent of putting solar on more than half a million rooftops. The program would create tens of thousands of jobs and as the chart I pointed to earlier shows, would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide emissions by 29 million tons, the equivalent of taking 4.3 million cars off the road for a year.
Next, Texas should establish a program to support emerging renewable energy technologies at the utility-scale, such as large solar, biomass and geothermal power plants. For example, Rep. Gonzalez- Toureilles has legislation that would set a goal for Texas to produce 4000 mw of these technologies by the year 2020. (HB 3145)
Next, we should prohibit homeowners associations from blocking solar installations as Rep. Leibowitz has called for in HB 25, which as you know, Chairman Keffer, was recently considered in the Business and Industry committee.
Finally, we support a bill by Rep. Farabee which makes sure utilities pay a fair price for surplus electricity put back on to the grid by a solar homeowner (HB 1643).
Thank you.
