From The Daily Caller
Millions In Its Green Energy Gamble
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor 10:55 PM 12/18/2018 | Energy
The city of Georgetown, Texas, lost nearly $7 million this year on its green energy contracts.
- Al Gore featured the city in his “Inconvenient Sequel” film, which was released in 2017.
- Mayor Dale Ross said going green would save residents money, but now has cost them millions.
Former Vice President Al Gore hailed the city of Georgetown, Texas, for powering itself with only solar and wind energy, but now the city is losing millions on its green energy gamble.
Georgetown’s bet against fossil fuel prices cost the city-owned utility nearly $7 million this year, and prompted officials to look for a way out of their long-term contracts for solar and wind energy.
“It’s costing them big time,” vice president of research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), Bill Peacock, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “This doesn’t appear to be the first time they’ve lost money, just the first time it was big enough to have to go public with it.”
Georgetown made national news after being featured in Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Sequel,” which was released in 2017. The film followed-up on Gore’s inaccurate 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“I think Georgetown is already a trailblazer,” Gore said during his 2016 visit to learn about Georgetown’s plan to get 100 percent of their energy from wind and solar power. (RELATED: UN Climate Talks Cost Us $2 Billion. What Have We Gotten For Our Money?)
“And one thing that Georgetown demonstrates to other places that are just beginning to think about it is that the power supply is not only more affordable the cost is predictable for at least 25 years into the future and really beyond that,” Gore said.
Standing next to Gore when he made those remarks was Mayor Dale Ross, the town’s Republican part-time mayor. Smithsonian magazine called Ross the “unlikeliest hero of the green revolution.”
“This is a long-term pocketbook issue,” Ross said in August. “It’s a win for economics and a win for the environment.”
Ross said the decision was based on dollars and cents, not environmental concerns, but now the city is trying to get to renegotiate its long-term green energy contracts.
TheDCNF was scheduled to interview Ross on Saturday. The mayor canceled the phone interview, but did not respond to TheDCNF’s inquiry about rescheduling.
Since being featured in Gore’s film, other media outlets have asked if Georgetown is the “future” of U.S. cities. However, Peacock said Georgetown is becoming more of a cautionary tale.
“They went all-in on one thing. Anybody looking at this from a financial standpoint could have foreseen these problems,” Peacock said. “This doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”
TPPF is suing Georgetown for the pricing details of its long-term solar contracts. Energy rates are considered trade secrets under Texas law and must be sought with a government records request. (RELATED: Tone Deaf: Al Gore Calls For More Climate Policies As France Riots Against One)
Georgetown began its shift towards 100 percent wind and solar energy several years ago, and the city says it reached that goal in July after the Buckthorn solar plant went online. The city-owned utility contracts with Buckthorn and the Spinning Spur 3 wind farm for all its power needs.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is interviewed at a screening for “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 25, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni.
Georgetown Utility Systems (GUS) contracted to buy wind and solar at fixed prices until 2035 and 2043, respectively. Georgetown is obligated to buy about twice as much power as it actually needs from green power plants. The city is first in Texas and second-largest in the U.S. to go 100 percent renewable.
The idea was that Georgetown would have enough green power to grow into at fixed prices, avoiding market volatility and what they saw as the rising costs of fossil fuels. In the meantime, Georgetown would sell any excess power back to Texas’ electricity market.
But energy prices plummeted in recent years, particularly natural gas prices, meaning the city lost money selling power back to the market. Georgetown Budget Manager Paul Diaz told city councilors in late November the utility had lost $6.84 million. City officials are looking for ways to make up the shortfall.
“GUS is in the process of opening negotiations with our current energy suppliers to adjust the terms of our contracts,” City Councilman Steve Fought wrote in an email to constituents.
“Additionally, we are working to change our management strategy for daily energy market operations,” Fought wrote in his November 26th email. “We also need to implement belt tightening measures in the electric department and shift funds to balance the GUS accounts.”
Georgetown Utility Systems’ energy costs were more than $23 million over budget in 2016 and 2017, according to Lisa Linowes, the founder of the anti-wind power group Wind Action.
Fought did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment. Representatives for Gore also did not respond to TheDCNF’s inquiry.
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“This is a long-term pocketbook issue,” Ross said in August. “It’s a win for economics and a win for the environment.”
Is this another example of the “Gore Effect”? 😉
Georgetown Utility Systems’ energy costs were more than $23 million over budget in 2016 and 2017, according to Lisa Linowes, the founder of the anti-wind power group Wind Action.
$23 million over budget on $71 million in projected revenue; 32% over budget. That’s a very big deal.
“rising costs of fossil fuels”
HA !!
Coal is still dirt cheap.
”The city of Georgetown, Texas, lost nearly $7 million this year on its green energy contracts.”…….Wonder how long it will be before South Australia follows suit. Only a matter of time before the battery goes flat and the s**t hits the fan.
Apparently the SA battery is making heaps of money for the operators..
.. mainly because it keeps operating “very often” to stabilise the frequency.
The more it earns, the closer the system is to collapse.
I pointed out this issue to a wind turbine lover who was bragging about how often it was working…
.. he didn’t seem to comprehend the issue 😉
At least with the fan being stationary, the s**t won’t go far.
It is really nice that they have solar energy at night to run those lights.
I have always wondered how they do that.
Pay attention to the pockets that the $7 million landed in and you will have a better understanding of what is really going on here. This is a global fleecing on an enormous scale.
With a 20-year fixed-price contract, you win in some years and you lose in some years. It is amusing that they lost $7 million in 2018, but is too early to declare it the end of the story.
True. If fossil fuel prices go back up, then Georgetown could be OK.
Myth, not renewable energy, generates Georgetown’s buzz.
By Cutter González| August 2, 2018…From Texas Public Policy Foundation.
…Georgetown’s mix of wind and solar power is a 50/50 blend, generated from a solar plant in West Texas and a wind plant in the Panhandle, according to the city’s website. So, what if clouds blanket the sky and the wind stills when demand crosses the threshold of supply?…
Well, the lights will stay on, because the Texas grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, will ensure power is available to meet demand. But ERCOT makes no guarantee of 100 percent renewable sourcing and, as electrons don’t have fingerprints, Georgetown won’t be able to guarantee that its electricity is from renewables. In fact, its energy mix would combine all sources known to the Texas grid….For starters, even though renewable energy’s reliability issues are mitigated by the existence of dispatchable energy sources such as coal and natural gas, the system is only kept afloat by citizens being forced to pay for the backup. And the greater renewable energy use grows, the more expensive and unsustainable the system becomes….
Note that Georgetown has a 2018 population of some 70,000 and even a blimp of a town/city of such modest size cannot make it’s renewable regrettable power needs function without fossil fuel back up for those 70,000 people.
It is beyond pathetic.
As I read this from my breakfast table, and watch the snow fall outside, I find this story quite dispiriting. It is dispiriting because no one involved in this will learn a thing from it. Probably the citizens of Georgetown are working on rationalizations, because to admit this didn’t work out so well would injure their self image. Once they’ve fully rationalized the episode, they will vote for same a second time. The city management is working on hiding as much of the story as possible, because that’s what elected government does. Al Gore has gotten the tiny bit of publicity out of this he needed (perhaps made some money through his management company) and has moved on. The anti wind-turbine people will try to publicize this without much effect because there are many ways to make the story murky, and the American public can’t follow murky stories. In other words, everyone will simply fortify the positions they had beforehand.
Gore’s family made a lot of money pocketing tobacco support payments on tobacco crops they didn’t actively farm. They made money on a product that was generally bad for people, and which was subsidized with public money. Gore current runs the same sort of rent-seeking operation today, and has gotten far wealthier through it than his father could have ever imagined.
I would hope we could learn something from it, because some day we’ll have the technology, either through batteries or something else, that will ease the intermittency problem. And, some day, we’ll run out of fossil fuels. And, some day, we probably will have to get serious about CO2 emissions.
Fossil fuels, as a cheap source of abundant energy, have served us beautifully, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves about their being the ultimate answer to powering the planet. We need renewables and we need to solve the problems that are attendant with them. It doesn’t look like we can solve them with the technology we have now. But their energy source is free, and that ultimately will become a huge advantage.
Fossil fuels, as a cheap source of abundant energy, have served us beautifully, but we shouldn’t delude ourselves about their being the ultimate answer to powering the planet. We need renewables…
We need nuclear, which is probably as close to the ultimate answer to powering the planet as possible.
CapitalistRoader. Well you’re right. I’ve looked at nuclear as a renewable. In any event we need it bad.
100% renewal?
It’s late afternoon in August in the humid Ausin suburb of Georgetown, TX. Government employees are leaving their air conditioned offices, going home, and turning down the thermostats in their Georgetown homes.
Meanwhile in Pecos County, TX the solar angle is 3 hours beyond direct normal angles to the single-tilt tracker at the Buckhorn solar plant. Output is dropping quickly.
In Oldham County, it is late August, late afternoon, and wind speeds have dropped well below the 13 mph required to turn a commercial wind turbine.
So where does the power come from now to cool our liberal friends through the evening in Georgetown? Thank god for coal, natural gas and nukes.