Texas eyes a Texas-sized role for DERs

Explicit content warning

10/20/22 • 57 min

Texas is saddled with a vulnerable energy system: Winter Storm Uri and this summer’s extended heat wave proved that. Now, distributed energy resources are getting some attention—finally.

State regulators are looking at how aggregated DERs could give the ERCOT grid greater stability. On the table is an 80 MW virtual power plant pilot that could serve as a showcase and building block for a much larger set of DERs.

Amy Heart, who leads public policy at Sunrun, helped craft the pilot as a member of the ADER task force. She joins the Texas Power Podcast to discuss lessons learned from past weather events, talk about current market redesign efforts, and offer insights into the future for DERs in Texas. If you like the Texas Power Podcast, please leave a rating and review!
The Texas Power Podcast is a production of Renewable Energy World and Clarion Energy. Check out our podcast for the solar industry, Factor This!
You can connect with Texas Power Podcast host Doug Lewin on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Texas is saddled with a vulnerable energy system: Winter Storm Uri and this summer’s extended heat wave proved that. Now, distributed energy resources are getting some attention—finally.

Previous Episode

Pat Wood on Texas grid reform and George W. Bush’s aha moment on renewables

Texas is tackling an energy market redesign not seen in decades. The freeze and subsequent outages from Winter Storm Uri in 2021 left hundreds dead and millions without power. The storm's aftermath also sparked a debate over how to make the ERCOT grid more resilient in the face of extreme weather events and a changing energy mix.
On Episode 1 of the Texas Power Podcast, host Doug Lewin is joined by Pat Wood, former chairman of both the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Public Utility Commission of Texas. He helped deliver former Texas Gov. George W. Bush's deregulation agenda in the 1990s.
Doug's conversation with Pat Wood covered the state's market redesign efforts, the enabling technologies that can support grid resilience, and the moment when then-governor Bush was first drawn to renewables.
If you like the Texas Power Podcast, please leave a rating and review!
The Texas Power Podcast is a production of Renewable Energy World and Clarion Energy. Check out our podcast for the solar industry, Factor This!
You can connect with Texas Power Podcast host Doug Lewin on Twitter and LinkedIn. Show notes:
-Episode article
-Subscribe to the free Renewable Energy World newsletter

Next Episode

Don't California my Texas electricity market

A highly anticipated report on the costs and effectiveness of three proposed reforms to the Texas electricity market is here. And the results aren’t great.

One of the proposals, which resembles the California electricity market, would increase the cost of Texas electricity by $22.8 billion over the second half of this decade without significantly improving reliability, according to the report.

How did we get here, and what’s next for ERCOT?

Texas Power Podcast host Doug Lewin is joined this week by Dr. Joshua Rhodes, who is a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, a non-resident fellow at Columbia University, and a founding partner and the CTO of IdeaSmiths LLC.

Show notes:
-Read the report commissioned by the Texas Consumer Association
-Follow Renewable Energy World's Factor This! podcast and join us Monday, 11/7 for a deep dive on the Texas market redesign.
If you like the Texas Power Podcast, please leave a rating and review!
The Texas Power Podcast is a production of Renewable Energy World and Clarion Energy. Check out our podcast for the solar industry, Factor This!
You can connect with Texas Power Podcast host Doug Lewin on Twitter and LinkedIn.