A perfect storm of ignorance, ideology, and inertia threatens to derail one of America’s greatest clean energy success stories.
Despite its reputation as a fossil fuel stronghold, Texas has emerged as a national leader in renewable energy. In fact, as of 2023, Texas led the nation in wind power generation and ranked fifth in solar capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). This unlikely rise was powered by a mix of “don’t mess with Texas” independence, market-driven investment, and a pragmatic “all-of-the-above” approach to energy that welcomed renewables alongside oil and gas.
But all of that progress could grind to a halt if House Bill 3356 becomes law.
For those who don’t know, Texas is the only state that operates its own independent power grid, managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). This autonomy has enabled rapid innovation and deregulated investment. But it also comes with a vulnerability: isolation. The state cannot import power from neighboring grids in times of crisis, as was made tragically clear during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.
That storm killed over 240 people, left millions without power or water, and caused an estimated $195 billion in damages. Critics were quick to blame investments in wind and solar energy for the blackouts. However, detailed investigations and independent analyses, including reporting by ERCOT and energy analyst Doug Lewin, show that the primary failures were in natural gas infrastructure, not renewables. Frozen gas pipelines and offline gas plants were the main contributors to the collapse.
Despite these findings, HB 3356 seeks to solve the wrong problem. It would require all renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar, to include dispatchable backup power to guarantee availability. In practice, this means pairing them with fossil fuel generation like natural gas or coal to guarantee 100% uptime.
Sounds reasonable right? The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow.
But forcing renewables to include dispatchable backup (and forcing them to do so retroactively, as described in the companion bill SB 715) would massively inflate costs, creating a de facto ban on future investment. Clean tech developers would face startup costs that are economically prohibitive, stalling or canceling new projects entirely.
If HB 3356 passes, the consequences would be severe:
The HB 3356 debate underscores a larger misunderstanding about the fundamental purpose and cooperative, load balanced, decentralized, “system based” architecture of how and why grids work. All the parts of the system work together as a whole.
Forcing each contributing energy resource on the network – clean or dirty – to have its own power plant behind it to “firm” the system defeats the purpose and efficiencies of having a grid in the first place. Today’s grid relies on overlapping systems and redundancy to maintain 100% uptime. Tomorrow’s grid, ironically led by innovators like Texas, are in the midst of making this systems-based approach even more redundant, more resilient. Smarter.
Just like the internet evolved from point-to-point data circuits to dynamic routing and switching (where data packets arrive at their destination through the most efficient path), the energy grid is evolving to include increasing contributions by distributed energy resources (DERs). Solar, wind, battery storage, and even EVs can feed energy back into the system.
DERs aren’t just fast and cheap to deploy, they can be installed whenever and wherever they’re needed most, reducing strain on the grid while improving overall grid health. Power flexing. Demand response. These are the watchwords of the modern grid. Like the early days of the internet, growth is happening at the “edges” of the network.
In fact, smart grid technology, load balancing, and virtual power plants are already demonstrating their value in regions that have embraced them. According to a 2024 report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), pairing solar and storage can now meet over 80% of peak load needs in some regions, at competitive prices. Sunrun, the leading provider of residential and community solar already packages solar panels with batteries as a comprehensive “solar solution”.
HB 3356 is not yet law. As of May 2025, it has advanced through committee but still needs final votes in both chambers before the Texas legislative session ends on June 2, 2025. SB 715 is so unrealistic and untenable it may ultimately be unenforceable.
But all this inside baseball misses the bigger picture. Texas is not just fighting an energy battle. It’s fighting for its economic future, its technological leadership, and the safety of its people. As national electricity demand surges due to EV adoption, data centers, emerging A.I. and the electrification of homes and businesses, there is no going back to the old grid, or the old (politically motivated?) ways of thinking about power generation and distribution.
Whether Texas leads this transition, or succumbs to ignorance and ideology, will determine more than just power bills, it may shape the next chapter of America’s energy story.
It’s time to put the gun down and get back to work.