Screenshot of TexasCleanEnergyScorecard.com
By Cyrus Reed
About four years ago, the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club decided to record the efforts made by a variety of electric utilities in Texas. Were municipal utilities investing in energy savings, demand response, solar, storage, electric vehicles, and other programs needed to transition to clean energy? What about large transmission companies? Retail electric providers in the competitive market? How about more rural electric cooperatives?
Well this week we finally finished our latest update which looked at the eight major Transmission and Distribution Utilities, the top 10 municipal electric utilities, the largest 18 electric cooperatives and the top 35 competitive retail electric providers. All of the information is available both in English and Spanish at TexasCleanEnergyScorecard.com.
Our latest update is largely based on information provided by the companies to the Energy Information Administration, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and the State Energy Conservation Office, a unit of the Comptroller of Public Accounts, as well as some internal research. Most of this information is from 2022 and 2023. The website also includes loads of information about how we generate electricity, how our energy market works, what has happened with the Texas electric grid since Winter Storm Uri, who regulates the utilities and the electric grid, and how utilities can improve their scores. Most importantly, we allow you to look at your region and see how the different utilities did compared with one another. And this year we even added a section about the availability of federal funds from the bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
So how did the utilities do? Who are the winners?
See here for a full list of all utilities and their scores. Among the competitive retail electric providers, unfortunately we found that all 35 leading retail electric providers falled to get a “passing” score above 70. We did find four retailers - Green Mountain Energy, Shell Energy, Octopus Energy, and Reliant that did enough in terms of promoting renewable energy and energy savings programs to earn a D. We believe that all four have some good programs and products that are worth Texans looking into, but they - and others - could do much more.
Among municipal electric utilities, only Austin Energy with an 84, Denton Municipal Electric with an 82, and CPS Energy with a 74 earned passing grades. All of these municipal utilities raised their scores slightly by committing to invest in more renewables and energy savings programs compared to previous years, though all three continue to operate fossil fuel plants that prevent them from earning an A.
Absolutely no electric cooperatives - which are supposed to be non-profits that help their consumers - had a passing grade. The largest cooperative - Pedernales Electric Cooperative - had the highest score at 50, but it seems to be going backwards with new rules that discourage onsite solar, and ending most of its energy efficiency programs. Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative has a few good programs but only earned a 46. All of the other electric cooperatives are well behind those two cooperatives and most are only beginning to look at investing in renewables, batteries, or energy savings programs.
Finally, most of the large Transmission and Distribution Utilities also received poor scores, though some have improved in recent years. The leading TDUs include Oncor with a 66 and Entergy in East Texas with a 62. Some of these TDUs are within ERCOT and do not own generation, while the four TDUs outside of ERCOT do. While all four of these outside of ERCOT utilities have begun to invest more in renewables and other clean energy programs, they have a long way to go.
Today, those same utilities will be presenting their 2024 current program plans and their future plans as part of the EEIP (Energy Efficiency Implementation Project) meeting.
The Lone Star Chapter will be beginning work on the next update soon - in part by using these utility plans being presented at today’s EEIP meeting - and should have new scores by late spring!
Image courtesy of ERCOT