The Transmission Tower premieres June 15, 2021 in Houston, Texas. The Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which controls about 90% of electricity in Texas, has asked Texas residents to conserve electricity through Friday as temperatures rise in the state.
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Texas led the country in building new renewable energy projects last year, according to a report released this week by the Clean Electric Association of America, continues a promising trend in a state largely reliant on planet-warming fossil fuels.
Texas installed 7,352 megawatts of new wind, solar and energy installations in 2021, outstripping California, which has installed 2,697 megawatts of storage projects. Oklahoma, Florida and New Mexico are the other top producing states.
Texas also surpassed other states in the amount of storage it is building or in advanced development, reaching nearly 20,000 megawatts, followed by California with nearly 14,000 megawatts.
Texas is seeing an increase in renewable energy deployment not necessarily because of concerns about human-caused climate change, but rather because of the low cost of renewable energy sources such as energy development. sun and wind.
Republicans for decades have overseen the energy industry in Texas, which remains 10th in the country in terms of fossil fuel consumption, as nearly 90% of its energy comes from fossil fuels and only about 7% is derived from renewable sources.
Texas has avoided federal regulation by setting up its own electricity grid that is virtually cut off from the rest of the country. During a winter storm of 2021, the system crashed amid a spike in demand and a freeze in utility plants, followed by a rise in energy prices and caused the state’s worst blackout in decades.
During the state grid failure, Governor Greg Abbott, along with other conservative state leaders, false blame for the power failure on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. However, most power outages stemming from problems with limited natural gas production and frozen supplies at natural gas, coal and nuclear facilities, and not from wind and solar failure.
More broadly, energy from fossil fuel production accounts for more than 80 percent of total consumption nationally, despite growing investment in renewable energy, according to data from the United States Energy Information Administration. Ky.
Last year, the US installed 27,773 megawatts of wind, solar and energy storage, down 3% from the previous year, according to a report by the Clean Electric Association of America. The capacity to store wind, solar and cumulative energy reaches 200,000 megawatts, or 200 gigawatts. Solar power also increased 19%, energy storage increased 196% and wind decreased 25% year-on-year.
“Passing more than 200 gigawatts of clean energy is an important milestone for the United States and shows that we can achieve more,” said Heather Zichal, CEO of the Clean Electric Association of America. further with strong public policy support for industry”.
“While the United States has achieved this amazing feat, much more needs to be done, at a faster pace, to achieve our climate goals and the goals our country needs to achieve,” said Zichal. Okay”.
House Democrats recently reunited calls for the president Joe Biden go ahead with a $555 billion investment in climate and clean energy that was passed by the House as part of the Rebuilding Better Act.
The climate section of the act represents the largest-ever federal investment in clean energy and would put the United States nearly halfway through meeting Biden’s pledge to cut the amount of energy in half. emissions compared to 2005 levels by 2030, based on nonpartisan analysis firm Rhodium Group.
