Texas is one of the country’s biggest producers of zero-emissions energy. Last year, the Lone Star State surpassed California to become the country’s No. 1 market for utility-scale solar. More solar and batteries were added to the Texas grid in 2024 than any other energy source, and the state has long dominated in onshore wind.

But that buildout is now threatened. A new tranche of bills in the Texas House and Senate could impose punitive engineering requirements on wind, solar, and storage plants — even those already in operation — and they could send the state’s power bills soaring.

Doug Lewin is the founder and CEO of Stoic Energy Partners in Austin, Texas. He writes the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, and he is the host of the Energy Capital podcast. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob talk with Doug about how Texas became a clean energy powerhouse, how it has dealt with eye-watering demand power growth, and why a handful of bills in the Texas statehouse could break its electricity market. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Mentioned:

A round-up of the anti-renewables bills now in Texas

A map of renewables across Texas

Electrifying the Permian

The economic impact of renewables & storage in Texas

Rural Texans speak out against SB 819

How Texas consumers benefit from the renewables expansion

Rob’s upshift; Jesse’s upshift.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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