Advanced Energy Industry Group Calls on Texas Utilities to Up Their Commitment to Distributed Energy Resources

AUSTIN, TX – Amidst ongoing power outages and calls for investigations in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA) is advocating for Texas leaders to reevaluate the state’s approach to grid resilience.

“Solar panels, battery storage, and other energy resources located in homes and businesses can provide significant relief for Texans who are disconnected from the grid,” said Matt Boms, TAEBA’s Executive Director. “Unfortunately, utilities have done their best to discourage their customers from having these critical resources in place, while doubling down with investments in costly gas generators that aren’t there when people need them. Amidst this failure is a need to reassess what Texas is doing to keep the lights on.”

Hurricane Beryl disrupted power for over 2 million Houstonians by damaging low-voltage distribution wires which connect homes to transmission lines, the major arteries of the grid. While about half of those customers had their power restored within two days, others had to wait over a week for relief. 

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen Texas make massive investments in fossil fuel infrastructure in the name of reliability,” added Boms. “Imagine what we could do if we put even just a fraction of that effort towards arming Texans with proven technologies, right in their homes.” 

In addition to the protection that rooftop solar+ batteries bring individual households in catastrophic events like Hurricane Beryl, they also provide reliability benefits to the grid as a whole. The suite of technologies, known as “distributed energy resources” (DERs), help to blunt spikes in demand like those that have threatened Texas’ grid in recent heatwaves, and can even provide power back to the grid. 

Additional Material: 

• A recently proposed grid resiliency plan from CenterPoint directs just 1% of its investments towards microgrid pilot programs, leaving the utility to instead rely on line maintenance and unproven investments in fossil gas generators, like the 20 massive gas generators which CenterPoint spent $800 million to rent, almost none of which were successfully deployed in the aftermath of Beryl.

• Despite the benefits of DERs, Texas’ energy utilities have lobbied for legislation that would make these technologies harder to build and less rewarding for businesses and homeowners considering the investment. One bill which passed the Senate last year would have DER operators looking to connect to the grid to undergo extensive studies, register as power companies, and even pay utilities for the right to connect.

• Advanced energy technologies like solar and storage proved their value during Beryl for those who had them, allowing some CenterPoint customers to power air conditioning and refrigerators in the heat that followed the storm.

Click here to learn more about Advanced Energy United's work in Texas.