Renewable Energy Becoming Big Issue in Texas

Renewable Energy Wind and Solar Farm

Texas has long led the nation in energy produced by wind turbines. When TCA took on a landscape analysis of renewable energy in Texas this past year, what we found was a stunning growth in industrial-scale solar facilities as well. Texas is No. 2 in the nation in solar “farms” and likely to be No. 1 by the end of the year. While this augurs well for reducing fossil emissions, it doesn’t come without problems. TCA conducted over 30 interviews and hosted three listening sessions with landowners, wildlife and ag interests, the energy sector, and state and community leaders to hear the benefits – and problems – of such rapid renewable energy development.

“The top issue identified by stakeholders was the siting of solar installations,” says Jen Mock of JMS Natural Resource Strategies, who led the project for TCA. “Covering thousands of acres with solar panels and fences changes land use patterns, fragments wildlife habitat, alters water flows, and impacts the quality of life for communities and other landowners in the area.”

While TCA, the National Wildlife Federation (who partnered with TCA in the analysis), and most stakeholders support renewable energy and recognize it is essential for clean air and limiting climate change, we find that Texas needs to get a grip on minimizing the impacts that come with covering hundreds of thousands of acres in solar panels, erecting thousands of wind turbines, crisscrossing the state with hundreds of miles of transmission lines, and threatening the degradation and depletion of our aquifers and water supplies.

One step that would be a big help is educating landowners about protections for wildlife habitat and quality of life that can be written into their land leases for renewable energy facilities. TCA and NWF are focusing on identifying these and other ways that conservationists can help alleviate the byproducts of renewable energy development.