Rudy Garza, CEO of CPS Energy, the nation's largest integrated municipal power and gas utility, doesn't mince words when it comes to the effort by some policymakers in Texas to punish renewables for the broad failures during Winter Storm Uri.

Garza became CEO a little over a year ago but has deep experience in Texas energy. And as one of the largest generators and customers in ERCOT, CPS Energy has a unique position in the market.

Garza, while recognizing the need for more dispatchable resources in the ERCOT market, opposes efforts to penalize renewables, a current legislative focus.

"I think it’s crazy to penalize renewables. We need every megawatt on the system that we can get our hands on," Garza said on Episode 8 of the Texas Power Podcast.

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.  

TIMESTAMPS

2:16 - About Rudy Garza

4:29 - About CPS

8:03 - Winter Storm Uri 

11:12 - Rotating outages

15:56 - Market redesign proposals in the legislature

18:23 - Attempts to penalize renewables 

20:35 - Closing coal units and diversification of energy sources at CPS

23:56 - Battery storage

25:23 - Deliverability issues with natural gas

28:46 - Energy efficiency, virtual power plants, demand response

35:20 - Impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, including direct pay for municipal utilities like CPS

42:18 - Large scale storage, including CPS’ pumped hydro storage pilot

44:58 - Distributed storage

47:20 - How CPS empowers customer to reduce costs and increase efficiency

51:45 - CPS’s future

52:44 - EVs

The energy transition is daunting to incumbent energy companies— albeit in very different ways.

Vistra CEO Jim Burke joined Episode 7 of the Texas Power Podcast with Doug Lewin to discuss how the largest electricity generator in Texas is navigating the energy transition and adjusting to a shifting ERCOT market design.

Burke discussed the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act, his ‘technology agnosticism,’ and Vistra’s current focus on reliability.  He also explored what the ongoing and impending energy transition means for a company that has traditionally relied on fossil fuels and the need to move away from an either/or, overly-simplistic debate in regard to the use of natural gas and 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.  

Texans can now get paid for supporting the grid with their solar panels and batteries as part of a new virtual power plant pilot project.

What happens next could lead to rapid deployment of resilient and clean distributed energy resources across the state.

But realizing that potential won't be easy. One of the biggest hurdles is customer engagement.

Octopus Energy US CEO Michael Lee joined Episode 6 Texas Power Podcast to discuss his extensive background in energy, his company's participation in the VPP pilot, and his vision for bringing the benefits of distributed energy to the masses.

This episode builds on Episode 2 featuring  Amy Heart, VP of public policy at Sunrun.

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.  

Tim Latimer was working as a drilling engineer in South Texas when he couldn't shake a newfound curiosity.

Latimer was new to the oil and gas industry, and in 2012, the industry was at the height of the shale revolution. He was tasked with navigating the challenges created by high drilling temperatures in the Eagle Ford Shale region.

As he did more research Latimer discovered the world of geothermal energy. Fast forward a decade later and his company, Fervo Energy, is leading the revival of what Latimer calls a forgotten renewable.

Latimer joined the Texas Power Podcast from Renewable Energy World to discuss his background, geothermal's resurgence, and the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on the industry.

Episode notes:
-Read this podcast's article on Renewable Energy World
-Listen to the Texas Power Podcast episode featuring Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance Chairman Barry Smitherman
-Check out this Volts Podcast episode on enhanced geothermal energy's potential

As if it wasn’t enough that Texas has some of the best wind resource, best solar resource, and largest shale oil and gas deposits in the world, the Lone Star State also has a great geothermal resource. Unlike the others resources, though, geothermal is yet to be tapped. That’s about to change.

The Texas Geothermal Alliance launched last year and has grown to nearly 50 members including major oil and gas companies, power generators, and pure play geothermal companies. 

 On Episode 4 of the Texas Power Podcast, host Doug Lewin is joined by Barry Smitherman, TxGEA’s chairman and president. Barry’s not new to the energy world in Texas though. He’s the only Texan to ever chair both the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Railroad Commission (which regulates oil and gas). He literally has a unique perspective.

Barry and Doug talked about geothermal and how perfectly suited it is to a state that has drilled—get this—one million wells. They also discussed the ongoing PUC market design debates and discussions which are reaching a sort of crescendo as the PUC drives toward a January 12 decision just two days after the Texas Legislature gavels in for their biennial regular session.

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.  

This episode was originally published on Renewable Energy World's Factor This! podcast. 

It's been more than 600 days since the lights went out for millions of Texans during Winter Storm Uri. 

The near-total collapse of the Texas grid can be attributed to a number of culprits— and there has been no shortage of finger-pointing. 

Promises were made that what happened in February 2021 would never happen again. And a market redesign that's underway is supposed to be the solution. 

To better understand what's happening, and what's to come, Episode 24 of the Factor This! podcast features Texas Capitol mainstays Caitlin Smith of Jupiter Power, Mark Stover of Apex Clean Energy, and Doug Lewin, host of Renewable Energy World's Texas Power Podcast.

 Show notes:
-Check out the "Don't California my Texas (electricity market)" episode of the Texas Power Podcast for a deep dive into a highly-anticipated report on the three electricity market redesign proposals.
-Read the ICF report commissioned by the Texas Consumer Association

Factor This!  is produced by Renewable Energy World and Clarion Energy. Connect with John Engel, the host of Factor This!, on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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.  

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.