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Texas Senate passes bill requiring solar plants to provide power at night (thehill.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Wanderer@lemm.ee to c/energy@slrpnk.net

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"The Texas Senate passed a bill Thursday that leading business interests fear would lead to an age of expensive power and rolling blackouts.

If passed by the House, state S.B. 715 would require all renewable projects — even existing ones — to buy backup power, largely from coal or gas plants.

This would require solar plants in particular to buy backup power to “match their output at night — a time when no one expects them to produce energy and when demand is typically at its lowest anyway,” consultant and energy expert Doug Lewin wrote in an April analysis"

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

This bill explicitly excludes batteries and storage of power. This just makes it so solar companies have to match their production with fossil fuel purchases.

It is to stop or slow expansion of renewables, as companies will essentially have to additionally and directly invest in fossil fuels to expand their industry.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 hours ago

Very sad. I get that the grid does need backup/resilience power and someone needs to pay for it, but adding a new FF plant of equal capacity is going well beyond backup needs. A simpler solution would be to tax renewable power in wholesale market such that it funds "payments for backup readiness" as needed, and tax goes down as less of it is needed.