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By Matt Johnson, Deputy Director, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter
I’m still scratching my head about this.
ERCOT, the electric grid operator for most of the state of Texas, recently stated that they think energy efficiency programs that help Texas families reduce their electric bills need to get bigger. We’ve been saying this for so many years, and now ERCOT is saying it too?! Is this a case of a broken clock being right at least twice a day? Not exactly, but let’s dig in.
The Context
Since Winter Storm Uri, our state elected officials, like Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and the Texas Legislature, have been making changes to our grid and power supplies so that we don’t have so many grid emergencies that almost shut the whole state down. Their ideas are pricey, risky, and bad for the environment because they depend on adding more fossil fuel power plants at our expense. They also make it harder for renewable energy resources to contribute.
The Sierra Club, along with several community-based organizations and consumer rights groups, have been unequivocal about the need for better programs that lower electric demand. What that means is programs that help people insulate their homes and improve their home’s heating and cooling systems. Those programs, usually administered through utilities but performed by contractors, lower the need for more power plants. They also lower utility bills and bring more good-paying jobs to communities.
Fast Forward to Today
The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) has initiated a proceeding (called a docket) to review the energy efficiency programs of the utilities that are required to have them. This docket also includes a review of other short-term ways to reduce electric demand when the grid is stressed. The wonky term for this is called “demand response” (think of a factory being paid to go offline to save energy).
We filed our comments (read them here in all their glorious wonkiness), which call for better and stronger programs that help Texas families reduce energy waste and lower their bills (that also reduces stress on the grid). For example, the Sierra Club advocates for an increase in the statewide goal for energy efficiency, and a new goal for “demand response” savings for Texas homes (not just big businesses), among other ideas.
Other stakeholders submitted comments too, including our allies at the Coalition for Equity, Environment and Resilience (CEER), and the South-Central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as Resource (SPEER).
But here’s what ERCOT said:
“ERCOT believes that a renewed focus on demand-side measures will be necessary to ensure a reliable grid in the future. ERCOT is therefore supportive of Commission efforts to establish and promote measures that cost-effectively provide additional long-term demand reductions – potentially including energy efficiency programs administered by Transmission and Distribution Utilities (TDUs) – or short-term demand reductions – i.e., demand response.”
There you have it. The entity in charge of keeping the lights on thinks we need to help Texans reduce energy waste! Great! Let’s go!
Tap the Breaks
Most stakeholders agree on expanding these programs… except one. Can you guess? (Answer: utilities). Yes, the utilities that are required to administer these programs don’t really want to see them grow. Why? Because they make less money for their investors if people like you and me use less (or in this case waste less) of the product they deliver: electricity. They like these energy savings programs small, but with big performance bonuses for hitting modest targets.
Will the growing group of stakeholders calling for bigger energy savings programs move these utilities to change their ways? It remains to be seen, but the acknowledgement from ERCOT is a good sign that organizations like the Sierra Club and its allies aren’t just screaming into the void.
We have to remember that these corporate utilities are shrewd and powerful political players, too. They make political contributions to elected officials like Gov. Abbott, who in turn puts pressure on agencies like the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ERCOT to act in their financial interests, not yours and mine. Hence, we get to a situation like this, where our state’s elected officials and agencies subsidize polluting power plants and ignore the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions to our grid crisis.
How You Can Support
We need a lot of people to speak up. You will hear more from us and our allies about a campaign to build grassroots pressure in the coming weeks, but you don’t need to wait to join the hundreds of Texans who have already signed our petition to Gov. Abbott to demand he support programs and policies that help Texas families save money on their electric bills, save our grid, and bring more good-paying green jobs to Texas.