Industry Spotlight ENERGY
Smart Competition
Spurs Innovation
Renewable energy and the digital age
A
S the
population of
North Texas
continues to
grow, the region’s
energy companies are growing their
responsibilities and resources to
accommodate the state’s ever-expanding
green and renewable energy initiatives.
Texas is known to have the most
competitive market in the nation when it
comes to power rates, largely due to the
state’s energy deregulation policies, which
became official at the start of 2002. Steady
competition between suppliers creates
significant benefits for business and
residential consumers seeking the best
available electricity rates. And as
competitors strive to provide premium
services at the lowest prices, consumer costs
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are driven down, while service offerings
and selections are continually expanded.
Best of all, a tight competitive market within
the power and energy sector is spurring
innovation and infrastructure growth – and
bringing new developments and
technologies directly to your front door.
The past 10 years have seen incredible
changes in the Texas power industry.
Innovative advancements and technology
adoption has changed the way power is
generated, distributed and consumed. Wind,
solar and biomass are a few types of clean
energy technologies utilized throughout
Texas, and represent an overwhelming
majority of the state’s economic activity
in renewables.
A combination of increased summer
temperatures and an aging electrical grid,
along with smart grid interoperability
issues has heightened the need for electric
infrastructure investment. Great strides have
been made to implement renewable energy
resources and other new technologies to
make the area’s electric grid more reliable,
greener and more efficient.
are areas of land deemed suitable for
renewable energy development. These zones
enabled companies and organizations to
build up their wind farms throughout
West Texas and the Texas Panhandle.
Although Texas currently leads the nation in
wind development, it lacks the transmission
capacity to move electricity from the wind
farms to other areas of the state.
In order to connect wind energy to
North Texas and other areas managed by
the ERCOT grid, it’s necessary to implement
transmission lines. Dallas-based utilities
provider Oncor Energy is playing a critical
role in the development of the transmission
lines from these renewable energy zones to
major population centers like the DallasFort Worth area. The company is investing
more than $1 billion on CREZ transmission
line projects to provide the much-needed
infrastructure for the state. These
transmission lines will cost-effectively
integrate wind-generated electricity into
the electric market and are scheduled for
completion in 2014.
A Digital Conversion
Driven by Wind
One such initiative focuses on tapping
Texas wind farms to generate electricity for
the ERCOT utility grid, which manages
85 percent of the state’s electrical power,
including North Texas (see “What is
ERCOT?” on page 38).
Several years ago, the Texas Legislature
identified Competitive Renewable Energy
Zones (CREZ) throughout the state, which
Another green initiative that continues to
expand is the development of smart grids
and smart meter technologies. The rollout
of smart meters, which began in 2008, is
giving North Texas one of the most
technologically advanced grids in the
nation, and is empowering consumers to
rethink their energy use and their
environmental impact. Oncor develops,
operates and maintains infrastructure, such
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