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Subject:
Monsters Under the Bed
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Good morning and happy Friday,
In this week’s headlines, the U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2023 report shows the industry is once again surging and forecasts the market will triple in size over the next five years, although solar developers may face tough sledding due to local opposition in Ohio.
And while Ørsted and Vestas signed a sustainability agreement centered on wind turbines that use low-carbon steel towers and blades made from recycled materials, in Washington, some GOP lawmakers are looking for ways to target the IRA using the Farm Bill.
Read on for more.
Reining It In
The word nightmare has nothing to do with female horses – it’s derived from the Old English “mare,” a mythological demon or goblin who torments others with frightening dreams – but in any case, a nightmare scenario for renewable energy developers in Texas was put out to pasture last week as the 2023 state legislative session ended without passage of bills that would have put the “Whoa!” on clean energy. Here’s the low down on what did – and didn’t – make it:
- The biggest bogeyman had been Senate Bill 624, which would have required state permits for most renewable-energy projects, and Senate Bill 2015, which would have required that starting in 2024, 50% of new generation connected to the Texas grid to be “on-demand.” Fortunately, both of these specters faded into the night.
- However, Senate Bill 2627, which provides funding to encourage the construction of gas-fueled power plants, and House Bill 1500, which changes how Texas generators earn revenue, did pass and are headed to the governor’s desk.
- HB 1500 will impact renewables by requiring new generation (starting in 2027) to be able to deliver “a set amount of power during to-be-defined times of high demand” or face penalties. In addition, it shifts more of the cost of building new transmission lines to developers.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Monsters under the bed. Although the worst outcomes were avoided, the bills that did pass this session “raise costs for the industry and make Texas’ famously renewables-friendly market less attractive for wind and solar.” The details regarding how many of the new provisions will be implemented still have to be sorted out, “meaning the new economics of solar and wind projects in the state could be unclear for years.”
Strange Bedfellows
Strange times make for strange bedfellows, and so it is that in 2023, advocates for clean energy, promoters of fossil fuels, Democrats and Republicans all agree: the U.S. permitting regime for energy projects is a mess. Here are a few of the latest moves in this dance among unlikely allies:
- Building a project – be it a gas pipeline, a wind farm, or a transmission line – requires getting permission from “an alphabet soup of federal, state, local and tribal agencies,” in addition to currying favor with private landowners. The process can take years, and the bigger – or in the case of lines, the longer – the project is, the longer it takes.
- For a few minutes, it looked like legislation to facilitate the construction of interstate transmission lines was going to hitch a ride on the debt ceiling deal, but House Republicans balked at including these provisions – a notable about-face: “Two decades ago, the GOP was the party of power lines.”
- Utilities are also not big fans of aggressive permitting reform for transmission, perhaps because they “are effectively transmission monopolies” whose position would be weakened by a big expansion of inter-regional transmission.
⚡️ The Takeaway
Cheese pizza. The recipe for permitting reform has thus far proved elusive, as a multitude of stakeholders with competing ‘dietary restrictions’ vie for dominance. “Everybody wants pizza, but everybody wants a different pizza.” Meanwhile, as folks dicker over toppings, projects that are “crucial for decarbonization” risk becoming stale.
- Pay What You Can: Californians’ electricity bills will soon depend on their income
- Clausius Obscurus: Bipartisan Shipping Clause Could Derail Big Clean Energy Goals
- Up and Up: Renewable energy surges, driven by solar boom and high fuel prices
- Clean Conundrum: Manufacturing vs. deployment: The tax-credit conundrum
Solar Microwaves
Back in September, we told you about a man trying to put mirrors in space to generate solar power at night. That may still sound a bit crazy, but don’t rule it out: in early January, a team at Caltech launched the Space Solar Power Demonstrator, “an orbiting suite of experiments to test key components for space-based solar power.” The Demonstrator was switched on in May and early results have been encouraging.
It's anticipated that the power will be transmitted by microwave beams, which are favored because they can travel freely through the air regardless of weather. The technology could be used to provide emergency power after natural disasters, or to electrify remote locations like parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Unsurprisingly, there are a few technological wrinkles to smooth out. One is the massive size requirements: a solar satellite would need at least one square mile of light-collecting area to match the output of a midsize power plant on Earth, and 2 GW of beamed power would require about 25 square miles of receiver on Earth. We look forward to helping the project developers prepare for that community hearing!
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