TexasCHLforum.com

Thanks for the link VMI77. More than half the planned generation is renewables, probably driven by tax credits and other regulatory policy. Most of the rest is natgas generation which is less capital intensive, so it's lower plant cost but higher operating cost. I can't tell from the document, but it wouldn't surprise me if the planned coal and nuclear are not new plants but increased generation from existing plants.

thankGod wrote:Since deregulation, there have not been any new power plants built in Texas AFAIK. There has only been companies established that broker power from existing facilities. Now with that said, there have been some generation stations, such as wind power, that have been built. However, this is not near enough for the amount of population growth and usage.

Regulation is to blame too.

Several years ago there were companies that started the ball rolling to build new nuclear plants, but government regulation and red tape makes that take a lot longer than the companies would like. So, in that case, regulation is reducing generation capacity.

There are also a lot of environmental regulations on coal fired generation. Worse, the rules keep changing. Without a stable regulatory environment, companies can't make good decisions on long term investments. So they're reluctant to build coal plants, for example, because they can't be sure the government won't pull the rug out from under them. So, in that case, regulation is reducing generation capacity.