Renewable energy: Big business and big government getting rich off taxpayers

(Originally published in the Lone Star Standard December 9, 2020.)

Oldham County Judge Don Allred cannot stop gushing about the money the county is making off of renewable energy.

“Wind has been a Godsend,” he said. “It allows flexibility in budgeting by providing a constant source of revenues that you know will be there when you need them.”

Meanwhile, Austin Community College is bragging that it has become the “first community college in Texas to use 100% renewable energy,” while Elon Musk is cleaning upbecause of “sustainable energy.”

It all sounds great, until you stop to consider who is paying for all this: taxpayers and consumers. 

In 2019, wind and solar farms operating in Texas took in almost $6 billion subsidies and benefits from local, state, and federal governments. All of that came out of the pockets of average everyday Americans—mostly Texans. 

A big chunk of that came from consumers paying higher prices for electricity. A price adder imposed on the market by commissioners at the Public Utility Commission of Texas increased the price of wholesale electricity by $3.6 billion. Consumers had to fork over another $700 million to companies like ONCOR, American Electric Power, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company to pay for the “CREZ” lines built to bring electricity from West Texas wind and solar farms. 

Renewable generators are also getting rich off taxpayers. About $1.4 billion of federal tax credits went to Texas-based renewable operators like NextEra, NRG, Exelon, and Pattern Energy whose combined market caps add up to more than a hundred billion dollars. Local tax abatements to these and other companies cost taxpayers another $180 million.

It is not surprising, then, that industry supporters can barely contain themselves when proclaiming that Texas is “scheduled to add almost as much wind as it has in the past five years combined and almost triple its solar capacity.”

However, other than higher electricity and tax bills, Texans have little to show for all this. Certainly not new jobs. 

Almost every wind and solar farm seeking tax abatements has to get local school districts to waive the minimum job requirements with these alleged “economic development” programs. Two guys driving around in a pickup truck doing maintenance is often the most one can hope for out of these projects. 

That outcome is actually fine with many folks in the economic development community, though. More and more, the focus of these programs is bringing in more revenue for government. If government has more money to spend, then little attention is paid to job creation. 

That is what drove the process in Oldham County, and what is driving the process today in Clay, Van Zandt, Bell, and Wharton counties. 

Texans trying to protect their bank accounts are basically surrounded; big government on one side and big business on the other side. Both are trying to hide their profit-seeking efforts under the guise of economic development or saving the environment. Of course, they are accomplishing neither. But that is fine with them, as long as the profits keep coming. 

Texas is already closing in on California when it comes to high energy costs. And they are not too much farther behind when it comes to the reliability problems California has had that led to rolling blackouts this summer. 

Despite what Elon Musk and other renewable advocates say, batteries are not going to move us toward sustainable energy. What they might do, however, is sustain the high market price of Tesla shares and the profits of the renewable industry while making the rest of us come closer to energy poverty. 

Bill Peacock is the policy director for the Energy Alliance in Austin, TX.