Wind power overtakes coal in Texas electricity generation
Wind power surged past coal in Texas’ electricity mix for the first time in 2020, the latest sign of renewable energy’s rising prominence in America’s fossil fuel heartland.
Texas has been at the forefront of a surge in wind power construction across the US, pulling in tens of billions of dollars in capital investment over the past decade and rapidly expanding electricity generation from the fuel. Surging investment and job creation has helped the renewables sector win political backing in the state despite it being home to the country’s oil and gas sector.
Wind turbines generated nearly a quarter of Texas’ power in 2020, beating out coal’s roughly 18 per cent share of the market, making it the second-largest source of generation in the state behind natural gas, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), the state’s main grid operator.
And the low carbon boom in Texas, by far the largest power producing state in the country with the second-largest population and a large base of oil refineries and petrochemical plants, looks set to gather pace from here.
Wind, solar and batteries combined make up about 95 per cent of new generation capacity that project developers have proposed connecting to the grid in the coming years, according to Ercot.
President-elect Joe Biden has promised to deploy tens of thousands of new wind turbines and millions of new solar panels as part of a plan to put the US on a path towards net zero emissions in the electricity sector by 2035, a central pillar of his $2tn climate platform.
