Rooftop Solar Had Its Moment in Texas Before Beryl. What Will Happen Now?

While much of the Houston area suffered power and heating outages last week as a result of Hurricane Beryl, the city of Bill Swann did not lose power.

He counted on 16 solar panels in his backyard and a battery system to meet the basic needs of the residents of his home on the outskirts of Hilshire Village.

Asked if neighbors were jealous, he said he didn’t know. Most of them had left their homes until utility company CenterPoint Energy restored power.

“I love bragging that I live on solar energy,” he said.

Local solar enthusiasts may know Swann as someone who runs free rooftop solar workshops. He is a retired mechanical engineer whose hobbies include designing and building solar systems, including his own.

I reached out to him this week to find out if Beryl, as well as long-term concerns about grid reliability, have made Texans more open to installing solar panels on their roofs.

Customer-owned assets are an important part of the transition away from fossil fuels and help reduce electricity demand in a grid that relies on gas-fired power plants.

Texas ranks third in the nation in generating electricity from small solar installations, including rooftops, behind California and Arizona, according to the Energy Information Administration. (The federal agency defines small solar as systems with a capacity of less than 1 megawatt.)

Still, on a per capita basis, Texas ranks 20th, suggesting there’s plenty of room to grow. How much room is hard to say, but a good way to put it is that the state’s generation from small-scale solar last year was about 1 percent of its total from large plants.

The state has the technical potential to meet more than 30 percent of its electricity consumption with rooftop solar panels, according to a 2018 paper from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. I’m cautious about citing that number because the underlying data is more than a decade old, and the technical potential is usually much larger than markets or consumer preferences can support. An official at the lab told me that scientists there are working on an update of that research, which could be available next year.

Texas has rapidly increased its electricity production from small solar in recent years. In 2023, the state generated 4,337 gigawatt-hours from that category, up 45 percent from the previous year, according to the EIA. Of the 10 states with the most small solar production last year, only Florida saw a larger percentage increase, up 47 percent.

“I think the public is ready for a paradigm shift in how we manage energy distribution in Houston,” said Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for Power Up Harris County, a coalition of labor and community groups that wants to expand the use of rooftop solar panels and other distributed energy technologies in the Houston area.

“I don’t think most people know what distributed energy is,” he said. “But they know the status quo isn’t working, and they’re hungry and eager for change.”

Houston is among cities receiving significant financial support for rooftop and community solar panels from the Biden administration’s Solar for All program, which is providing about $250 million to a group of Harris County nonprofits that will primarily benefit low- and moderate-income households.

Texas hasn’t done much to encourage the installation of rooftop solar panels through tax breaks or state and local regulations, but residents can take advantage of federal benefits, such as an investment tax credit that covers 30 percent of the cost of a system.

The primary drivers for the investment in rooftop solar in Texas were a desire to reduce exposure to rising operating costs and concerns about the reliability of the power grid, said Ryan Barnett, senior vice president of policy and market development at Palmetto, a North Carolina-based climate technology company whose products include solar panels and battery storage.

“Texas is a fast-growing giant in the distributed energy market,” he said.

His company saw a big increase in interest from Texas customers after the 2021 winter storm caused power outages. Palmetto operates in more than 20 states.

“As reliability declines and consumers lose power more often or for longer periods, they are becoming increasingly interested in technologies and equipment that can provide them with greater resilience,” he said.

Beryl will likely add to the momentum already building in Texas, he said.

Another key variable is that the cost of solar and storage is largely unchanged, while utility costs continue to rise. A solar system can cost about $20,000, but the savings on your electric bill will pay for itself in less than seven years, according to EnergySage.

The cost discussion is part of an argument Bill Swann has been making to anyone who will listen for more than a decade. He said it’s much easier to convince people these days.

“There’s a strong economic case for solar,” he said. “The payback is typically 8, 10, 12 years. … And then it’s free energy.”

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Other energy transition stories to watch out for this week:

Trump’s environmental impact is visible at home and around the world: The outcome of the U.S. presidential election could change the trajectory of the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. Part of understanding what might come is looking at what the Trump administration has done, as my colleague Marianne Lavelle does in this story.

Trump talks about electric vehicles and auto trade: Former President Donald Trump spoke at length with Bloomberg Businessweek about a variety of topics. Bloomberg’s Craig Trudell highlights parts of the conversation about electric vehicles and the auto trade, showing Trump vacillating between saying he has “nothing against electric vehicles” and attacking electric vehicles over concerns about range, weight and high prices. It’s a potential preview of what Trump could do if elected in November. He said he would reverse Biden administration policies that support electric vehicles.

Could new nuclear law change the industry? The ADVANCE Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden last week, aims to streamline the licensing of new nuclear reactors, increase resources available to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and promote American nuclear power technology around the world. E&E News’ Zack Bright reports on the potential impact of the bill, based on interviews with nuclear industry insiders and environmental groups.

Don’t blame clean energy for rising electricity bills: A new report from think tank Energy Innovation shows that the growth of renewable energy is not the reason for rising electricity prices, even if Republican lawmakers and fossil fuel advocates claim otherwise. The main drivers of rising electricity rates are the rising costs of maintaining and expanding grid infrastructure and spikes in fossil fuel prices, Jeff St. John reports for Canary Media.

Renting electric vehicles could become more difficult: Renting an EV could soon become more difficult as rental companies have been cutting back on inventory, Jack Ewing and Dionne Searcey report for The New York Times. Hertz is a notable example, scaling back plans to acquire 100,000 Teslas after the cars’ resale value fell more than the company had expected. Some rental companies are selling their EVs at steep discounts, which is great for buyers, but that lowers resale value even more when these vehicles enter the used-car market.

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