The US Solar Industry Is Safe In Texas, For Now

Lawmakers in Texas thought they had a win this year, when they advanced several bills aiming to kneecap their own state’s booming renewable energy industries. Bless their hearts. The bills are now officially dead and the US solar industry, in particular, can live to fight another day — for now, that is.

Texas Lawmakers Once Loved The US Solar Industry

Not too long ago, Texas legislators welcomed the solar industry — and the wind industry, too — with open arms, as part and parcel of the state’s relaxed regulatory environment for energy-related ventures. Texas’s unique status as an electricity “island” also motivated grid planners to scramble for every available in-state power generation resource, including its copious store of wind and solar energy.

Well, that was then. More recently, vote-thirsty politicians on the Republican side of the aisle have been riding the “anti-woke” fever in a toxic wave pool of right wing ideology, sweeping up renewable energy in its path.

That’s quite a turnaround for a state that has claimed the #1 spot for wind energy generation on a state-by-state ranking since the early 2000s. The Texas solar industry has been no slouch, either. Texas was not an early leader in installed solar capacity but it has raced to the top in recent years, vying with California for #1.

Where Is The Love?

Apparently, some legislators in Texas would rather burn their laurels rather than rest on them. Victory has been elusive, though. During the Biden administration, for example, the Republican majority in the Texas legislature passed new laws aimed at preventing public fund managers in the state from doing business with renewables-friendly financial firms.

The law of unintended consequences kicked in when the new restrictions throttled down competition in the financial sector, burdening taxpayers with new expenses while financial firms simply skipped off to conduct their business with wind and solar industry stakeholders elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the renewable energy footprint continued to grow in Texas, particularly in the case of solar. “The market research firm CleanView ran the numbers on capacity additions and calculated that Texas accounted for more than 25% of all solar energy added to the US in 2024,” CleanTechnica noted earlier this year.

The CleanView forecast was also rosy for 2025, with Texas nailing down 35% of the entire current US solar project pipeline.

Texas Solar Industry Under Siege, Or Not

This year, instead of attacking renewable energy investors through the public fund route, lawmakers went straight for the jugular. Several new (or newish) bills went sailing through the Texas legislature earlier this year, aimed at placing new restrictions on the shovels-in-the-ground side of the wind and solar industry in order to discourage investors.

The law firm K&L Gates was among those warning that the new bills are “likely to stifle renewable development at a time when the state cannot keep up with increased energy demands.”

K&L advised that one of the bills, SB 819, would “have a chilling effect on investors’ appetites to finance new projects or expand existing facilities and will likely negatively impact renewable projects that are operating within the state.” SB 819 would have layered extra regulatory requirements onto wind and solar projects, while leaving fossil energy projects untouched. Legislators had tried to pass a similar bill, SB 624, in the previous session.

Another new bill, SB 715, would essentially require wind and solar projects to contract with gas power plants for backup power or pay stiff fines. A third bill, SB 388, would have required renewable energy developers to add new gas generation on a watt-to-watt equivalency, ignoring that fact that new gas power plants are already facing a turbine supply bottleneck.

Despite the looming threats, renewable energy developers in Texas have continued to hammer away at ongoing projects, with the solar industry in the lead. Earlier this year, for example, CleanTechnica took note of Texas-based Vesper Energy’s 600-megawatt Hornet solar array, part of a 16-gigawatt solar energy and energy storage project pipeline the company is planning for Texas and elsewhere in the US.

Another project of note is the 260-megawatt SunRoper project, under the wing of the San Antonio firm OCI Energy and the Israeli solar industry leader Arava Power. SunRoper is just one piece of OCI’s 20-project, 10-gigawatt solar and energy storage pipeline, much of which is located in Texas.

The Solar Industry Is Saved, For Now

All that persistence is about to pay off. As reported by The Hill on May 28, several bills “targeting the Texas renewables industry” hit a brick wall. They were not voted down by a sudden change of heart, though. They passed the Senate last week. However, with the current session set to end on May 16, Republican leaders in the House decided not to calendar the bills in time for a vote, and so they died a procedural death.

“The fight in Texas echoed a similar fight in Washington, where red-state senators whose districts have benefited from billions in clean energy investment are now pushing back against a House-passed budget that seeks to eliminate Biden-era tax credits that incentivized that spending.” Hill reporter Saul Elbein observed somewhat optimistically. Still, it does appear that cooler heads prevailed in Texas, at least for now.

The Texas bills were opposed by top players in the Texas business community, including the Advanced Power Alliance, which represents diversified fossil energy firms as well as wind and solar industry stakeholders. The sponsor of SB 715, Republican Kevin Sparks, also reportedly told his fellow legislators that the Texas Association of Manufacturers and the Texas Oil & Gas Association both opposed his bill.

Texas To Solar Industry: Bring Us Your Factories!

Oh the irony, it burns like a thousand points of light. Texas legislators are already gearing up for the next session, when a new suite of anti-renewable bills may succeed where others failed. However, if they don’t do something to stop solar factories from popping up in their home state, Texas will continue to put its oversized stamp on the nation’s solar profile.

Just a few years ago, Texas had exactly one solar module manufacturer on its roster. Now the state is home to a growing number of solar manufacturing facilities, guaranteeing that a strong domestic supply chain will  keep the nation’s solar industry humming along for years to come, if not in Texas then elsewhere around the country.

Photo: Vesper Energy’s 600-megawatt Hornet solar array is up and running in Swisher County, a testimony to the strength of the Texas solar industry (courtesy of Vesper).