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Suggestions for a Regional Development Plan Utilizing Three Renewable Energy Sources for Texas


Texas is faced with energy policy issues unique among the 50 states due to its geographic size, current infrastructure, population, and available natural resources. Though at present the state is poised to shed itself of any tie to a public electric utility, this paper constructs a geographic argument in support of a regional development plan for renewable energy in west Texas. State level input in both regulatory and policy-making capacities would greatly benefit residential and commercial electric customers, local municipalities, and the state’s ecology.
Texas has three sources for electric power generation that are underutilized: solar, wind, and biogas. Through a combination of large- and small-scale power generation facilities utilizing these sources, Texas can continue to expand its supply of electricity, better secure electricity transmission through multiplicity, and improve air quality without placing a prohibitive economic burden on for-profit retail providers. However, changing current practices would require well-coordinated efforts between the various levels of government, especially urban municipalities, power generators, residential developers, and private individuals. For these reasons, there is a need for state-level policy implementation.

CURRENT INFRASTRUCTURE
Texas has its own electricity grid supplied by power generated mostly from locally available resources, namely coal, natural gas, hydroelectric and wind. Nuclear power accounts for roughly 9% Texas electricity generation, but is not powered a local resource. Together, coal and natural gas account for nearly 88% of power generation in Texas, according to the Texas Energy Planning Council’s most recent report, from 2004. However, it states, Texas hit peak production of its coal reserves in 1996, and now imports almost half of its supply for power generation, mainly from Wyoming. This represents a significant transport cost, and since the 1990s, power generated from coal has declined in favor of locally available natural gas. But demand for natural gas, according to the report, is expected to keep prices high, and therefore, discourage further growth in that sector. The limited supplies of coal and natural gas mark them as non-viable for an expanding demand of electric power. To meet that demand, new sources of energy must be tapped.
No one form of energy will be enough to meet continuing demand, therefore the researcher of this paper proposes developing a coordinated set of policies designed to foster development in renewable forms of energy. A comprehensive set of policies would coordinate conservation efforts with building practices and codes, land use planning, and, most importantly, public transportation, requiring very long-term construction and redevelopment efforts. Austin Energy has set a goal of producing 30% of its power from renewable sources, part of the city of Austin’s Climate Protection Plan. Austin’s comprehensive plan addresses the energy problem in the holistic way necessary to solve it.
To transition toward that necessary overall goal, this paper focuses on three renewable energy sources that have proven technologies ready for immediate implementation at state, county, city, and individual levels by connecting to existing physical and organizational infrastructures. Wind, solar, and biogas sources already are being developed by Austin Energy, supplying power to the state capital, and demonstrating the viability of such renewable energy.

WIND POWER
Texas has become the largest producer of wind-generated electricity in the U.S., with an installed capacity of 2,768 megawatts, according to the American Wind Energy Association, and has another 1,000 MW of production capacity being constructed. Refining their system designs has dropped the price of wind power to between 3 and 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, about what coal or natural gas costs, at 2.9 to 3.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, the latter figures coming from the state of Oregon’s Energy Review, which has performed a cost comparison between the various methods of power generation commercially available.
Texas already is being developed for wind. This presents an opportunity to assist a non-sequitur problem—school funding. In a presentation to the Texas Energy Planning Council in Houston, The Wind Coalition showed that wind power had more than one billion dollars of private investment. Local school taxes paid by wind power plants were more than three times that of natural gas and almost twice as high as coal, generating more than 23 million dollars from 2002-2004. Furthermore, the industry created, according to the TWC, more than 2,500 hundred jobs statewide.
However, their research also showed a significant time lag in the implementation of wind power. Because large-scale wind-power facilities require sustained high wind speed (class 4 or above) their utilization is geographically limited to the west Texas and Oklahoma panhandle regions. To get power from those parts of the state to the population centers in north central Texas, eastern, and Gulf Coast regions will require extensive power transmission lines. The financial cost of a project to create the needed lines, TWC estimates based on ERCOT and Public Utility Commission sources, is low, at 5 cents per month per customer. But the cost in time is daunting; constructing a wind-power plant takes only one year, but connecting it to consumers takes five years or more.
One possible policy goal to solve this problem would be the creation of a Tennessee Valley Authority-style public works project. For the sake of argument, call it the Texas Sky Power Authority, whose mission would be to develop property location, establish ownership through the issuance of permits, oversee standards and quality regulation in conjunction with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as PUC, and other state and federal agencies, and other necessary and prudent operations to install and maintain the necessary transmission lines. Small-scale wind power generation for residential or commercial uses should be overseen by local municipalities under guidelines developed by the TSPA.
A less grandiose goal would be to develop financial incentives such as bonds or loans, or an increase in the state tax cap so that city governments can participate in capitalization efforts. For a model, one need only look as far as McKamey and Sweetwater, where Austin Energy gets the supply for most of its 665 million kWh in subscriptions. Austin Energy is developing another 225 MW of wind power according to its website, austinenergy.com.

SOLAR POWER
On average, Texas receives 72% of the sunshine possible (that is, if every day of the year were perfectly sunny with no cloud cover), as much as 80% in far west Texas, but even the lower end of the range at 60% on the eastern half of the state is somewhat offset by the solar intensity, according to data from the State Climatologist’s Office. All portions of the state, according to a 1995 report to the Texas Sustainable Energy Development Council prepared by Virtus Energy Consultants, “Solar radiation is available throughout the state in sufficient quantity to power . . . water heaters and off-grid photovoltaic cells,” and that solar power of various kinds “can become major contributors to [sic] satisfying the future energy needs of Texas.” The report calculates that approximately 4,300 quads (one quadrillion BTUs) of solar energy strike the state, on average, but Texas consumes only about 10 quads. Modern solar panels convert approximately 20% of the radiant energy into electricity, representing a potential energy source of 860 quads, more than ten times greater than the U.S. as a whole consumes, although Time Magazine estimated U.S. consumption at 97.6 quads, based on government data.
Like any energy source, not all is recoverable, but by utilizing that twenty percent of this resource through commercial and residential applications, base load on the electric grid can be reduced, especially beneficial during the peak usage months of summer. Commercial applications of rooftop panels are available (residential ones cost around $20,00), and some businesses, such as Whole Foods, are adopting them to reduce the amount of electricity they purchase to run their facilities. For residential purposes, the report states, homes with less than half of the rooftops covered by 10% efficient solar cells would generate enough electricity for their own usage, again reducing the demand on the grid during peak usage. Roof top solar technologies, according to Nova, could provide for up to 40% of a city’s peak electric demand. Widespread installation would reduce cost to customers during the most expensive usage period, and provide for extra grid capacity.
The recent episode of Nova, entitled Saved by the Sun which reported the above, also highlighted the nation of Germany, which has created financial incentive programs to encourage homeowners to invest in rooftop solar applications. Here in the U.S., so has the state of Oregon, whose initiative is much like the plan from Austin. In all, fifteen states, Nova says, offer similar incentives. The episode reported a single home eliminating 70 tons of CO2 emissions during its eleven year use of solar panels.
The German program also installed panels alongside existing highways. Texas has a great number of rooftops and highway miles available for such installations, but lacks specific legislation defining the sale of solar electric power from the residential or commercial producer to the retail provider. Oregon developed a “net metering” law that ensures electric customers with solar production capacity are entitled to sell their surplus power back to the utility, in a sense only paying for the net difference between their consumption and production over a month’s billing period.
The second policy goal herein recommended is the development of laws, codes, and regulations that define and monitor the sale of surplus power and the rights of both residents and commercial or retail operators to sell surplus power. To complement such legislation, a statewide solar loan and solar rebate program could be created, modeled on that now offered by Austin, Texas, to provide the market.

BIOGAS
The biogas sources are sometimes lumped together under the umbrella category of biomass, which includes energy sources from plant matter as well as reclaimed methane. However, because plant fuel sources require space to grow the crops and because the agricultural production is intense, there is little advantage to investing in these sources. Although, as technology improves in utilizing plant debris left over from agricultural operations, this situation may change, making biomass an affordable combustible fuel. Methane reclamation, on the other hand, taps an energy reserve that exists, and offers the additional benefit of treating waste streams in an ecologically sustainable way and more cheaply than conventional systems.
Biogas is the broad term for methane reclamation processes, of which two are practical for Texas in the long term; however, these systems would only be practical operating at the municipal level and perhaps best in private operations. For example, individual ranching operations or whole cities might invest in digester units which process human or animal waste.
Millions of small-scale digesters, according to the Virtus report, are in use in the developing world, mainly in India and China. Various sources report on two test facilities that have been in use in South Africa since 2001. The first was a household of eight family members (and two cows), the second, a school of 1,000 students (with access to other local cows). The technology also is being adapted to dairy and beef cattle operations (no human input needed), and can be adapted to housing developments. The process has been experimented with since the 1950s, and in a wide range of rural settings in Africa, India, Nepal, and China, so the technology is mature—and cheaper than solar power electrification. In mainly rural west Texas, where some of the largest cattle lots are, anaerobic digesters could be installed piecemeal by their operators, and later incorporated into the grid to sell surplus power.
At the municipal level, the city of Austin powers its Hornsby Bend wastewater treatment plant from recovered methane. Austin Energy is harvesting methane from three landfills in Austin and San Antonio. Both systems could be employed more broadly across Texas. Some cities are already supplementing their budgets through the sale of fertilizer made from treated sewage, such as Denton’s Dyno Dirt and Austin’s Dillo Dirt. The Austin facility treats 45 tons of primary and secondary waste each day. Upgrading plants to capture methane from the solid wastes already being produced would be capital improvements.
Turning wastewater into fuel not only generates new, clean energy, it also capitalizes on a collection system that is currently in place—the sewer system. With even smaller cities like Denton having hundreds of miles of pipe in place, the wastewater transport systems are a significant physical infrastructure that is underutilized. Because that system is in place, development efforts can focus on the water treatment facilities, speeding the implementation of this large resource.
Mandating the conversion of solid wastes to biofuels of the various kinds and providing information and financial assistance to municipalities should eventually offset the costs for treating urban effluents before re-entering surface and groundwater streams. In addition, by concentrating on the urban centers in northern parts of the state, water quality downstream also will be improved.



CONCLUSIONS
There is a geographic connection that links the renewable energy sources described in this paper. The western portions of Texas have high sustained wind speeds, making the region the natural choice for wind farms. Cattle ranching is widespread in this region, so establishing biogas operations there also is a practical location choice. These two operations can coexist in the same space, maximizing the yield of the area. Finally, insolation rates are highest in the west, and the mostly undeveloped land can accommodate large-scale solar power plants.
In sum, developing the west Texas region as an energy production corridor provides economic resources that may allow the local population to remain on land that is under threat from water rights speculators and from a changing livestock and agriculture market. And as the installations can be done in an ecologically sustainable way, a popular base of support can be built between environmental groups, business, industry, government, and private citizens.
Investing in these sources of renewable energy will provide needed energy and improve environmental quality of the air, water, and land as fossil fuel sources are gradually supplemented and supplanted. By developing a combination of large- and small-scale facilities, present investments in existing fossil fuel sources will not be jeopardized, but perhaps energized to participate in the energy source transition without significant reinvestment capital expenses or the wholesale loss of currently marketed commodities.
For more on the potential of sustainable energy sources in Texas, see maps depicting their geography from the 1995 Virtus report to the Texas Sustainable Energy Development Council.