The February 20, 2019 issue of the Wilco Sun is a must read for its coverage of this issue. Here is one front page article:
City was never 100% renewable
By CHARLOTTE KOVALCHUK
According to the city’s Renewable Energy FAQ page in December, Georgetown switched to 100 percent renewable energy in 2018.
However, according to new information released last week, in 2018, 64 percent of the city’s electricity came from wind and solar and 36 percent from natural gas.
When asked to comment, Mayor Dale Ross said, “Jack Daly, the city spokesperson will provide a comment.”
Mr. Daly answered by quoting a statement from the Georgetown Utility Systems’ Rumor Control webpage: “The city has never claimed that the electrons produced in West Texas are the same electrons consumed in Georgetown. ... Texas operates an interconnected electric grid. Georgetown is credited with the energy it pays to put into the grid, regardless of where it is located. The city is credited with putting more renewable energy into the grid than it consumed. According to the state, Georgetown’s customers have been using and paying for all-renewable energy since April 2017.”
Yet Mayor Dale Ross has told at least one media outlet that Georgetown is 100 percent renewable without explaining what that means or mentioning the city’s use of non-renewable sources.
In an interview with Ari Shapiro on NPR’s All Things Considered, March 17, 2017, Mayor Ross said, “So I think people all over the country wonder, how is it that such a red city like Georgetown, such a conservative place, was one of the first cities in the country to be powered 100 percent by renewable energy?”
“Semantics argument”
When asked for comment, Councilman Tommy Gonzalez said there was nothing to comment on because “we don’t define what 100 percent renewable is. Other people do.”
Councilman Steve Fought said he has explained the city’s natural gas contract with Mercuria a couple times in his newsletter in the last three months, but did not make a big deal of it because once electrons of any origin are put on the grid, they’re not distinguishable anymore.
Councilwoman Rachael Jonrowe agreed.
“It’s all going into the same pool of energy,” she said. “Yes, we’re contracted for a certain amount, but there’s no way to direct it all to us. People have an image of it going down the wires and only coming to Georgetown.”
Mr. Fought said, “If every town, city, county, every power generation in the state of Texas was renewable, except for one coal plant, and that plant was put on the grid, nobody would be able to say they were renewable. It’s a semantics argument.”
He said the city meets the 100 percent renewable definition well enough because it puts out more renewable energy than it uses.
The concern that the city hasn’t put a complete explanation out is legitimate, he said, but the issue is hard to explain. Plus, the natural gas contract will end in 2021.
The contract was initiated in 2013 following the termination of the city’s relationship with the Lower Colorado River Authority. It was intended as a short term power supply and is set to end in 2021, according to the city.
The contract is meant to cover peak demand, Ms. Jonrowe said. If renewable energy-based electricity couldn’t meet the demand for power, the natural gas-based contract would ensure Georgetown has enough power to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running
“Flat lie”
But for John Gordon of Georgetown, the statement that Georgetown is 100 percent renewable is a “flat lie.”
Mr. Gordon is an electrical engineer specializing in power systems engineering. He said wind and solar power are unreliable because windmills and solar plants only provide power when the wind blows and the sun shines.
“This is the absolute stupidity of depending too much on sporadic sources of power,” Mr. Gordon said.
“You don’t build an electric utility system based on, ‘maybe the wind is blowing or maybe the sun is shining and there are no clouds.’ None of those guys on the city council or even Jim Briggs have ever provided 100 percent renewable power 100 percent of the time. Now everyone is going to have to pay a lot of money for their stupidity. It’s a huge loss for the Georgetown community.”
Overall, he said, the city should have released the power contracts to the public, stated what they’ve done and then started to figure out if there’s any way to correct the errors of the current path.
“Until we see the contracts, we don’t know how bad it is,” he said. The city says it can’t release the contracts because of confidentiality clauses in them.
The common thread among all the comments are "excuses"! Not a single city or elected official was willing to take responsibility and admit that they "screwed up". Not of them offered any solutions either.
The City is either lying to themselves or to the public if they think they can renegiotate the contracts to more favorable terms. The investments that were used to construct the wind and solar farms have been securitized and sold to big pension funds and large insurance companies that want long-term stable returns. Clearway Energy for instance CWEN, is paying almost a 10% dividend to holders of its securities!
Since the funding for the construction of the wind and solar farms has been securitized and sold, it would seem that there would be a low risk of a lawsuit if the contracts were released to the citizens of Georgetown.
Let your Council Person know they need to release the contracts so that the people of Georgetown have the necessary information to determine the best way, for the rate payers, to proceed!
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