Renewable Energy Saves Texans $2 Billion

Texans saved nearly $2 billion this summer through low-cost renewable energy delivered by the state’s nation-leading wind and solar resources, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The report, released by GridLab and IdeaSmiths, shows that affordable wind and solar power saved Texans nearly $2 billion dollars between June and September by reducing wholesale electricity prices, water usage, and emissions from thermal power plants. 

All told, wind and solar generated a record total of 47,000 megawatt-hours of energy during that period. That’s 25% of all electricity consumed in Texas’ ERCOT grid over the summer months.  

Joshua Rhodes, lead author of the report and Partner/Chief Technology Officer of IdeaSmiths, compared ERCOT electricity costs over the summer to what costs would have been with no renewables on the system — that difference alone, he said, was nearly $1 billion. 

“Because wind and solar require no fuel and have low marginal costs, they lower wholesale clearing prices and ultimately save customers billions of dollars,” Rhodes said.

Clean energy also helped Texas save billions of gallons of water this summer. Thermal power plants consume significant volumes of water for cooling — water that could otherwise serve growing population centers — which adds stress to already strained watersheds. 

The state’s robust solar and wind resources, which do not need water to generate electricity, reduced water withdrawals by about 665 billion gallons this summer. That equals the annual water use of 7.3 million Texans. 

The state’s homegrown renewable energy also mitigated 31.3 million tons of CO2 emissions over the summer — equalling about 5% of the total annual CO2 emissions for the entire state of Texas. It also prevented the release of about 35,000 tons of more dangerous pollutants. 

The lower CO2 emissions alone saved Texans $626 million, the report shows. Texans also benefited from reduced air pollution and avoided medical costs. 

Renewable deployment in Texas has grown significantly in the past 10 years, saving Texans tens of billions of dollars in wholesale electricity costs, as previous analyses have shown. The new report builds on those findings, demonstrating that additional clean energy resources in Texas offer a wide range of economic, environmental, and public health benefits — while also helping ERCOT reliably meet consumer energy needs. 

GridLab | https://gridlab.org/

IdeaSmiths | https://www.ideasmiths.net/