Solar Power Can Aid Strained Texas Grid, Officials Say
Solar power can play a role in aiding Texas’ strained electric grid, industry officials and regulators said Tuesday at a meeting devoted to solar power in San Antonio.
“Solar will help ERCOT, will help in our resource adequacy challenge,” Public Utility Commissioner Rolando Pablos of San Antonio said at the conference, which was convened by the nonprofit Solar San Antonio. He was referring to the peak-time pressures on the Texas power grid, when power demand threatens to exceed supply.
Currently only a tiny fraction of Texas’ power comes from the sun, and the state ranks well behind California and other ...
Comments (4)
cal morton
Wow, there is so much wrong with this story, I'm just shaking my head...
1. Solar leasing has failed in Texas...before it really even took off. Five minutes of checking this would have confirmed that the biggest players in solar leasing do not operate in Texas... be a reporter a find out why, they will be happy to tell you.
2. Germany provides more than 50% of their power on a sunny weekend from solar alone... over 20GWh... and mostly from roof-top, or non-utility scale solar... again check it out.
3. Solar is still too expensive? Says who? Not the thousands of families in other states where there exists a form of rebate or feed-in-tariff from the state or local utility.
4.The PUC represents utility scale energy providers, not the PUBLIC as their name suggests... I could go on and on but what good would do? None, the facts are there for everybody to see... christ... $7 Billion would have been enough to add over 4.4 GWh to the grid in solar without the need to add transmission lines! (based on $1.50 per watt rebate)
William Walton
Re: Cal Morton's comment on your solar article, I agree that your papers comment about solar being expensive/costing more than ? is inaccurate, at best.The costs are at or below grid par across the board and will contine to become even more favorable through 2014. If the Fed's and the State of Texas removed all of the oil subsidies, including the enormous tax breaks Big Oil receives ( paid for twice by low income citizens), solar would be the fastest growing renewable and sustainable resource in America, including Texas! No pumping of hidden chemicals into the ground. No "broken" refineries burning off usable natural gas, only pollution free production of solar power & wind.
David Spratt
What would you expect regulators and Industry experts to say,,,, Solar is inefficient , costly, and and not viable? The bottom line is private industry will not fund it and it will require massive amounts of federal funds. It has been a failure everywhere it has been tried.
Rebates and credits???????????? Who ultimately pays for this? Feed in tariffs??? The utility providers will gladly pay these fees and never pass the cost along to the consumer I am sure.
I have a truck for sale ,,, $15,000............ You come and buy it and I will give you $5,000 rebate,,,,, What a deal HUH. Problem is it is only worth $10,000 to begin with.
If you need me to sweeten the deal I will give you $10,000 if you will buy it for $20,000.
David Spratt
Solyndra $565 million,...... Bankrupt
Abound Solar $ 70 million,,,,,.... Bankrupt
Nevada Geothermal $98.5 million....... Failing
Ener1 $118 million ........Bankrupt
Beacon Power $43 million...........Bankrupt
A123 $ 400 million....... $172 million net loss ... purchased by Chinese
Tesla Motors $ 465 million....... Is selling electric cars,,,, $57,000 low end model,, will not say how many they sell
Smith Electric Motors $32 million......... No product produced ,, bailing out it's parent UK company with DOE money
Vestas Wind Systems $ 51 million.......... Tax credits paid ... laying off 2,335 employees worldwide
First Solar $ 3 billion...............Bankrupt... also got $ 51 million from Arizona
Evergreen Solar undisclosed amount... Bankrupt... $58 million in grants and $11 million in tax breaks from Massachusetts
Enerdell $118 million........... Bankrupt
Sun Power $ 1.2 billion........... Bankrupt ? Sold to NRG Energy Who owns BrightSource
Spectrawatt $500 million Grant.. Bankrupt
Mountain Plaza $424 million........... Bankrupt
Babcock @ Brown $ 178 million...........Bankrupt
Solar Trust $ 2.1 Billion..............Bankrupt
Brightsource $ 1.6 billion.............. Operating with losses
Fisker Auto $ 529 million............ Produces high end electric sports cars made in Finland
Amonix $5.9 million...............Laid off 2/3 of workforce
AES Energy Storage $ 17.1 million.............Bankrupt
Stirling Energy $ ? .....................Bankrupt