Renewables + Storage Make Billions Of Dollars In Texas

When a new Texas renewable energy report came out recently, Zach quickly wrote an article about it. I was in contact with the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and wanted to query the report’s author, Professor Rhodes, from the University of Texas at Austin.

Texas is the second largest US state in land area and in population, behind Alaska and California, respectively. Of course it has an extensive gas and oil history, and it’s the number one wind power state in the US. It also is quickly progressing with more solar power installations. Despite having a very strong Republican party, the state of Texas is advancing steadily with renewable energy.

An SEIA Texas solar power fact sheet provides some background:

• Over 37,000 MW of installed solar power, with potential to reach 51,000 MW in several more years
• Over 12,000 Texas solar power jobs
• Enough solar to power about 4.5 million Texas homes
• Texas state solar power market valued at over $45 billion.

Professor Rhodes generously answered some questions for CleanTechnica.

According to the report, existing and expected utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage projects will contribute over $20 billion in total tax revenue — and pay Texas landowners $29.5 billion — over the projects’ lifetimes. Is the tax revenue coming from taxes paid upon initial installation and then annual local taxes thereafter? And how long are the project lifetimes?

Property taxes in Texas are generally assessed annually, so these would be annual taxes paid to the local county offices. We estimated 30 years for wind and solar and 20 year lifetimes for storage. 

Do the landowners receive annual payments because the solar, wind, and energy storage installations are located on their land?

Yes, they are essentially receiving lease payments for these projects leasing the land for the renewable and storage developments. I think most are paid quarterly.

Is it possible for some Texas landowners to have more income from renewables and/or energy storage than any other source?

It would be very possible, depending on what else the land could be used for, grazing, oil and gas, etc.

Are renewables and/or energy storage on local land generating income which helps farmers keep their farms operating so they can continue owning their land rather than having to sell?

We heard from multiple landowners that that was the case, essentially the projects act as a “drought-proof” crop and helps them keep the farm.

Over 75% of Texas counties are expected to receive tax revenues from either wind, solar, or energy storage projects. Could that percentage grow as more renewables and energy storage are installed locally? 

Yes, as it become more economical to deploy these resources, I’d expect the number of counties that host these projects to increase.

About how many clean energy jobs are there in Texas?

We didn’t look at that directly, but it takes a lot of jobs to build and maintain these projects! Sweetwater, TX is also a world-class hub for training wind turbine technicians. 

Will Texas need more renewables to combat climate change and because of a growing population?

Texas needs more energy for a lot of reasons including population growth, data center growth and growth in clean energy in particular to meet the demand without degrading the environment!