How 100% renewables backfired on a Texas town

[IsailedawayfromFR]

An article worth repeating. 

An inconvenient truth is hanging over Georgetown, Texas: Its celebrated shift to renewable energy doesn’t look like a national model these days.

Electric rates are up. Critics are blasting the costs. And the city north of Austin is trying to figure out how to mitigate the situation.

Georgetown, whose green push gained global attention thanks to former Vice President Al Gore and others, can claim to have 100% renewable power thanks to a credit system tied to electricity purchases. In 2018, the city bought enough power from wind and solar projects to account for all of the community’s consumption. It also pays for power fueled by natural gas.

In all, the city contracts for more electricity than its municipal utility needs to serve customers — and that’s been a problem. Surplus power is sold into a market hampered by weak prices, often delivering financial losses instead of the returns Georgetown expected.

“It’s unfortunate that the Georgetown experiment went so quickly from being a success story to being something of a cautionary example,” said Adrian Shelley, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

Shelley remains optimistic about renewable energy’s growth in Texas and beyond. He tied Georgetown’s predicament to the specifics of the growing city’s plan to meet demand as well as lower-than-expected natural gas prices. In Texas’ main power market, electricity prices are heavily influenced by the price of gas.

But how the Georgetown saga plays out could affect how other areas with municipal utilities pursue and budget for renewables — especially if they lock in more power than they need. That’s important because cities and companies across the country are proposing renewable and net-zero carbon goals.
https://energynews.us/2019/11/05/southeast/how-100-renewables-backfired-on-a-texas-town/

I lifted one outright lie tucked within article.  Show me one renewables project that was an economically superior to alternatives.

The renewable shift “was first and foremost an economic decision,” Ross said in a YouTube clip of “From the Ashes.”

[Joe Wooten]

Looks like the Austin wierdos infected Georgetown. Their 100% "green", "renewable" project ended up just all the rest did. Financial disaster along with much higher electricity rates.

[mountaineer]

It also pays for power fueled by natural gas.

Renewable? Bernie would shut down natural gas production, in the name of the Green New Deal.

[Smokin Joe]

Renewable? Bernie would shut down natural gas production, in the name of the Green New Deal.

You caught that, too! 

With his proposed ban on fraccing, in a decade natural gas prices and the electricity generated by it will go up.
Might not bother a guy with Bernie's money, but most folks would feel it.