Trump Renewables Crackdown Tests Texas Energy Market Resiliency

Texas’ efforts to maintain a resilient power grid in the face of rising demand and storm threats are being tested by the Trump administration’s attacks on renewable energy.

The Lone Star state is unique compared to others because it allowed the market to determine what resources to invest in, leading to extensive transmission lines transporting solar and wind energy. Those renewables are particularly abundant due to Texas’ extensive and sunny landscape, and have been supported by the state’s growth of battery storage.

“Texas is number one in wind and solar not by accident, but because we have the resources, the infrastructure, and the market design to make it happen,” said Matthew Boms, executive director of the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance under Advanced Energy United.

All of that is strained by President Donald Trump demanding the end of clean energy subsidies and restricting federal funding for renewables programs, provoking one Texas county to fight back in the courts.

“Infrastructure has been a big part of Texas’ success story in renewables,” said Sean Gallagher, senior vice president of policy at the Solar Energy Industries Association. “A lot of this progress in Texas is under threat from recent acts in Congress and by the administration.”

“The challenge right now is from the federal government” which has “reduced and curtailed tax credits available to the solar and storage industries” and is “likely to decrease the amount of supply that comes online,” Gallagher said.

New Energy Landscape

Renewables helped make Texas’ grid more stable in the summer, but there’s still concern for the winter because “the Trump administration has responded by just completely making it so difficult to add more energy to the grid,” said Hannah Malus, vice president of strategy and advocacy at Clean Energy for America.

“The lives and livelihoods of Texans are just collateral damage resulting from this administration picking winners and losers and energy sources instead of just letting the market decide,” Malus said.

Wind and solar generation have been the fastest-growing sources of electricity in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas system—which maintains the state’s electric grid—since 2023 and are increasingly meeting rising demand, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

For example, from June 1 to Aug. 31, solar met 15.2% of all demand in the ERCOT system, according to the council’s data.

“The political economy of energy in Texas demonstrates that clean energy—it shouldn’t be partisan,” Malus said.

Harris County—Texas’ largest county and home to Houston—in October sued the Environmental Protection Agency for canceling $250 million it was awarded to fund solar energy infrastructure in low-income communities. Other states and organizations have also filed challenges over the Solar For All program.

“The whole purpose of the grant is to lower skyrocketing energy costs, to create clean energy jobs, to improve community health safety and resilience, and, of course, to support domestic manufacturing,” said Christian Menefee, Harris County’s chief civil lawyer.

The county on Oct. 24 moved for a preliminary injunction to stop the EPA from implementing the cancellation of the program. The section of the July tax and spending bill that rescinds “unobligated balances” violates the Administrative Procedure Act and US Constitution, the motion said.

“I agree with the overall sentiment that this sector is poised to continue growing, but I think you’d have to be a bit foolish to think that that growth won’t be slowed or stunted because of the actions of the Trump administration,” Menefee said.

The EPA said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation since Solar For All is the subject of different lawsuits. The Energy Department and ERCOT didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

ERCOT’s CEO, Pablo Vegas, testified before Congress in March about the grid.

“A reliable grid must have a balanced mix of generation resources, especially with the ‘all of the above’ approach” found in Texas, he said.

Texas Resiliency

Though these developments will affect Texas resources, ERCOT itself sets the state apart from others.

“ERCOT is mostly isolated from other grids in the country, and that means that Texas has more autonomy on how the market is designed and operated,” Boms said. This allows the state to avoid lengthy oversight processes from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the interstate transmission of gas and electricity.

The state’s infrastructure also plays a big role.

“There was a really important transmission build out that happened about 20 years ago to connect remote wind and solar projects to the urban hubs in Texas,” Boms said. That “allowed billions of dollars in private investment to flow into Texas because the transmission was in place.”

“Federal policies will have an impact, but generally speaking, the industry is here to stay, and it’s really up to state leadership,” he said.

There have been recent attempts in the state legislature to pass bills that would add obstacles for renewables, but they didn’t go far.

One Republican-led bill, SB 819, would have added new permit requirements on wind and solar generating facilities, according to law firm K&L Gates.

Another, SB 715—also led by state Republicans—would have moved up the effective dates of new generation reliability requirements, according to S&P Global.

“There have been threats over the last few legislative sessions and some anti-renewable proposals, but luckily, none of those have passed,” Boms said.

Texas also invested in stronger weatherization following Winter Storm Uri in 2021, which left about 4.5 million Texans without electricity during extremely low temperatures.

FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. released a report the same year finding that natural gas-fired units represented 58% of all generating units experiencing unplanned outages and other issues at that time. Wind made up 27%, coal made up 6%, and solar made up 2%.

“I think that these technologies—wind, solar, storage, demand response—they’re not experiments anymore,” Boms said. “They’re the backbone of the Texas grid and the economy.”