
Nearly 3,000 people from 27 countries are attending a summit in North Texas this week on how to plan for future energy production. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Innovation Summit is being held at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine.
"Texas really has all the ingredients to really manufacture all types of energy and use next generation technologies to do it," says U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
Granholm said other countries like China have developed policies to attract industries to build components needed for renewable energy.
"They saw our passivity as their opportunity," she said. "That's why this 'Invest in America' strategy is so important."
Granholm said the Biden Administration's Investing in America program is driving private sector development. In Texas, she said 53 companies have announced plans to build clean energy projects.
Of those 53 companies, she said 24 are related to electric vehicles and charging. In 2022, Wallbox opened a plant in Arlington that produces EV chargers. The company says it produced 250,000 EV chargers in its first year and expects to support 700 jobs by 2030.
In Kleberg County, south of Corpus Christi, Occidental Petroleum is using a grant from the Department of Energy to build a carbon capture facility. DOE is also providing a grant for a clean hydrogen hub in Houston. The hubs create networks of producers and users to produce, deliver, and store clean hydrogen.
"That is amazing. It's really something," Granholm said. "These are just manufacturing facilities. That doesn't even include all the projects for generating solar energy you all are so ahead of the game on. This is making stuff in America."
Texas currently leads the country in solar and wind production. Granholm said these projects can also make the state a leader in the production of the components needed for renewable energy. She says producing the components here would reduce reliance on China.
"This intentional strategy is making America irresistible for investment," she said.
Granholm said the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan Infrastructure Law provide incentives for investment in clean energy. She says those incentives focus on communities "that may have been left behind" as older industries have left.
"This is why all of our global competitors are kind of mad at us because they know we have developed this way for companies from around the world to locate here and make them profitable," she said.
Friday afternoon, CenterPoint Energy said 5,800 customers still did not have power as a result of severe weather around Houston last week. The company said it had restored power to 890,000 customers.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said the state's grid could set records for demand over the holiday weekend because of the hot weather forecast over much of the state. ERCOT predicts demand could top 75,000 megawatts Friday and 76,000 megawatts Monday, but the grid operator does not expect demand to top supply.
Granholm said ERCOT is trying to plan for the future as well by securing additional energy sources that can contribute to the system during spikes in demand. ERCOT has started a pilot program to see how "virtual power plants" like backup generators or battery storage systems can contribute to the energy market.
"How can you use batteries in electric vehicles, for example? If you combine them together for energy storage, you can make the grid more resilient," she said. "All of those kinds of technologies are right here in Texas."
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