Sen. Kelly Hancock’s (R-North Richland Hills) bill that would require intermittent power generators such as wind and solar farms to pay for ancillary services, recently passed the Senate’s third reading with 25-6 votes in its favor.

Senate Bill 1278 would require the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) to direct ERCOT to assign the cost of ancillary services to the renewable projects themselves instead of passing these expenses along to the consumer.

“Ancillary services are reserve generation and load resource capacity that can be used to address the variability in grid demand changes, such as large swings in both electricity demand and reductions in supply from falling generation performance,” Hancock wrote in the Bill Analysis. “Intermittent generation, mainly wind and solar resources, cannot be 'dispatched' by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). This can make it look like we have a lot of installed generation capacity, but much of it cannot be relied upon because it is only there if the sun shines or the wind blows. ERCOT cannot tell these intermittent generators to provide power at any specific level, including during peak demand periods.”

Texas Association of Manufacturers’ Katie Coleman said at the Senate debate late last month that there has been much reliance on intermittent generation and pointed out that it is concerning is that there is no guarantee that it's available anytime, Austin News reported.

Price and energy distortions that come from the increasing growth of renewable energy generators impact the reliability of the state’s energy grid—considerably lowering it in effect, according to research from the Energy Alliance.

Retired California State Fullerton economics professor and energy analyst Robert Michaels told Dallas Express that subsidizing renewable energy projects factor into the issues of Texas electric grid reliability.