Proposition 7

Vote for this proposition to keep the lights on during a Texas emergency

Coming off a brutally hot summer i n which Texas set 10 unofficial state records for electricity demand and issued nearly a dozen requests for energy conservation to keep the lights on, it would be reasonable to be a bit worried about the grid’s resiliency for the foreseeable future.

When ERCOT, the state’s grid manager, announced this month it would be seeking up to 3,000 megawatts of additional generation because there’s a 20 percent chance of a grid emergency this winter, it’s reasonable to be even more worried. That additional generation won’t come from any new power sources. ERCOT instead provided a list of mothballed natural gas and coal plants that could maybe, hopefully creak back to life to stave off disaster.

This is the new normal Texans are facing when it comes to power generation: living like we are always in a hurricane’s path, except instead of breathlessly tracking weather forecasts, we’re scanning ERCOT dashboards to see whether energy demand will outstrip supply. State legislators flailed during the legislative session over proposals to make the grid more reliable by building out many more gigawatts of generation.

A compromise did make it into state law with an accompanying constitutional amendment that voters will consider this coming election. Proposition 7 would create the Texas Energy Fund to subsidize low-interest loans for the “construction, maintenance, modernization and operation” of new power plants.

This fund, administered by the Public Utilities Commission, would set aside $7.2 billion of taxpayer money for power generators to apply for 3 percent interest loans. These loans could fund up to 60 percent of the construction for new “dis-patchable generation” of at least 100 megawatts.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: this new law is a prime example of the state Legislature putting its thumb on the scale to tilt the energy market against renewable power, which has grown in Texas at a rapid pace. While subsidies helped get renewables going, at this point, it’s simple economics: building solar fields and wind turbines is cheap and investing in new natural gas plants is expensive.

Yet, it’s also true that the rapid shift to renewables has made the state’s main grid more precarious at times. No, renewables were not to blame for the Winter Storm Uri power failure, but we still need power sources that can fill crucial periods of the day when grid conditions are tight: around sunrise in the winter months and on hot summer evenings when the sun sets and winds haven’t yet revved up.

The Texas grid survived this record-breaking summer thanks to existing natural gas plants, and to surging investments in large-scale batteries and solar panels that still produced juice late in the day, including when the grid was in emergency conditions. ERCOT’s independent monitor also reports that required power reserves — backup generation kept offline until needed — added $8 billion in electricity costs.

A future for Texas with a menu of energy options is still well within reach, but we can’t allow our grid to collapse before we get there.

Proposition 7 is hardly perfect, but as a sum of its parts it could be an effective bridge solution for keeping our lights on and ACs running.

We urge a “for” vote on Proposition 7. — Houston Chronicle