Toxics on Tap: How Natural Gas Drilling Threatens Drinking Water

Here’s our November Coalition Update. Lots of exciting things have happened!

 Go Solar Texas! A new Hope for Solar…

As most of you know, the legislature failed to adopt a statewide solar rebate program earlier this year. However, a new path to solar incentives has opened at the Public Utilities Commission.

On Friday, the PUC unveiled its "strawman" proposal to boost investments in energy efficiency. If adopted, the PUC would more than double the requirement on utilities to invest in energy efficiency, saving consumers $411 million and avoiding the need to produce 535 megawatts of electricity (the equivalent of a large coal-fired power plant).

In addition, the proposed rule says utilities “may” meet 10% of the requirement through investments in solar power or other distributed renewable energy technologies (e.g. small scale wind, geothermal heat pumps, etc). There is clear intent from the Legislature to create a statewide rebate program for solar power, so kudos to the PUC staff for proposing a solar set-aside. If 10% of the program was dedicated to solar, we could develop more than 500 megawatts of rooftop solar by 2015, according to an analysis by Vote Solar.

Now we just have to change that one small word - may - to "shall." No sweat, right? Sadly no. The electric companies don't like that idea and will likely put up a fight. So it's up to Governor Perry and the PUC to show leadership and adopt a strong solar program (you can sign our petition here). And you can read a bit more about this issue on our blog.