The Institute for Electric Efficiency (IEE) recently completed a white paper detailing the effect variable electricity pricing has on low-income customers.

The IEE commissioned The Brattle Group to look at five studies undertaken during the past few years that examined how variable or dynamic electricity prices affected residential customers.

The IEE found that, “while there is mixed evidence on the magnitude of the responsiveness of low income customers relative to other customers, there is strong evidence across these five programs that low income customers do respond to dynamic rates”.



See for yourself by downloading the full report .

To learn more about the IEE, visit their web site .

“The Future of Natural Gas is the third in a series of MIT multidisciplinary reports examining the role of various energy sources that may be important for meeting future demand under carbon dioxide emissions constraints. In each case, we explore the steps needed to enable competitiveness in a future marketplace conditioned by a CO2 emissions price.”

We’re proud to note that PAT Board Member Ralph Cavanagh served on the Advisory Committee.

Check out the full report here -

Yesterday, Power Across Texas’ Board Member John Hofmeister was a featured guest on NBC’s Meet the Press. John was joined by Senator Mary Landrieu, Congressman Ed Markey, BBC's Katty Kay, Governor Hailey Barbour and Ken Feinberg, the appointed administrator of BP's escrow fund.

The group discussed the status of the oil spill in the gulf, the government's response, and the reaction to BP's recent testimony.

John’s new book Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight talk from an Energy Insider is now available for sale.

Stay up to date on John’s past and future media appearances at .

In addition, check out John’s non-profit organization Citizens for Affordable Energy at .

Power Across Texas Announces New Advisory Board Member And New Corporate Member.

We are very pleased to announce the addition of a new Advisory Board Member of Power Across Texas – Mr. Ralph Cavanagh. Ralph is a senior attorney and co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s energy program. I am excited to welcome Ralph to the Advisory Board and believe his guidance and support will help PAT further it's mission as a nonpartisan, independent organization. Please see our website for Ralph’s complete bio: poweracrosstexas.org.

Additionally, we are excited to announce that Calpine Corporation has joined Power Across Texas as a Gold Level corporate sponsor. Calpine, founded in 1984, is a major U.S. power company, capable of delivering nearly 25,000 megawatts of clean, cost-effective, reliable and fuel-efficient electricity to customers and communities in 16 states in the U.S. and Canada.

Calpine “generates electricity in a reliable and environmentally responsible manner for the customers and communities it serves” and “believes that a strong commitment to environmentally responsible electrical generation is a key element to achieving its goal of being the finest power company in North America.”

We appreciate Calpine’s support in achieving our mission to provide a learning center for energy issues that draws allies from all corners of the political, academic and corporate sectors, and that fosters awareness around aspects of energy issues that affect us all.

In January, Power Across Texas' Advisory Board and Corporate Members met in Austin for a Strategy Session to ensure PAT's mission was filling an appropriate vacuum in the energy market and to identify projects that PAT should focus on during 2010 and 2011.

See photos, and hear more about the event inside.

The natural variability of wind power makes it different from other generating technologies, which can give rise to questions about how wind power can be integrated into the grid successfully. This article aims to answer several important questions that can be raised with regard to wind power.

This report responds to a request to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) from Chairman Henry Waxman and Chairman Edward Markey for an analysis of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA).1 ACESA, as passed by the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009, is a complex bill that regulates emissions of greenhouse gases through market-based mechanisms, efficiency programs, and economic incentives.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) releases a comprehensive study on the impact of The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill (HR 2454). The bill aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to cap the amount of carbon that is emitted by U.S. industry. The legislation does so by mandating a cap and trade program and other provisions governing fuel choices available to businesses and consumers. This bill passed the House of Representatives by a slim margin (219-212) earlier this summer. The Senate is expected to release its version of climate legislation in September.

The large decline in U.S. emissions in 2008 and 2009 due to the economic recession ensures that if the House-passed Waxman-Markey climate legislation becomes law, the bill's emissions reduction cap will require no reduction of carbon emissions over the first two to five years of the program. The resulting oversupply of emissions permits will allow regulated firms to continue business as usual emissions through as late as 2018, according to a new analysis by Breakthrough Institute based on new Energy Information Administration emissions projections that take into account the impacts of the global recession.

The Texan economy is becoming ever more diversified, but energy remains a favourite
HIGHWAY 84, as it descends from Lubbock through Snyder to the small town of Sweetwater, is a road worth taking. Spread across the vast plain are thousands of windmills, gently turning in a favourable wind; not too slow, not too fast and, above all, fairly consistent.

Only as you draw near to one do you realise that these towers are the height of 40-storey buildings; their blades are the length of a jumbo jet’s wing. They are clever too. Without human intervention, they can turn their heads and alter the pitch of their blades to make the most of the wind. They cost about $5m apiece.

Sweetwater calls itself the windpower capital of America, and with roughly 3,300MW of installed capacity within a 50-mile (80km) radius the claim is not extravagant. Already endowed with oil and gas, Texas is blessed with a fair wind as well. Even stronger and more consistent winds are to be found further north along the “wind corridor” that stretches from the west Texas plains up through the panhandle and into Oklahoma and beyond. But for now these areas are too remote to be connected to any of America’s three main grids: the eastern, the western and Texas’s very own ERCOT grid.

Two teams of scientists from the University of Texas have been asked by the U.S. Department of Energy to set out on the energy frontier — one team in search of a new way to collect solar energy, the other to contend with the byproducts of America's energy use.

Professors Paul Barbara and Gary Pope have been given $30.5 million in grants as part of a $777 million national energy research effort that its developers have likened to the creation of the atomic bomb and the mission to put a man on the moon. Their projects were two of 46 that the Energy Department's Office of Basic Energy Sciences chose from among 260 proposals.

These energy frontier research centers, as the Energy Department calls them, have been charged with providing the research foundation for a multibillion-dollar government drive to answer some of the biggest questions of national energy use and its consequences.

The nation's clean-energy economy is relatively small, but it's growing rapidly, and Texas is one of the leading players, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Pew researchers counted 68,200 businesses and 770,000 jobs across the United States tied to clean energy as of 2007, according to the most recent data. Texas ranked second to California in both jobs and clean-energy businesses.

Those jobs amounted to one-half of 1 percent of the nation's total, but Pew researchers said the clean-energy sector grew twice as fast as the overall economy during the past decade and is poised for explosive growth in the coming years because of a surge in private investment in the sector and in federal government spending.

As Congress and the Obama administration reshape how Americans consume energy, the state that produces more energy than any other is mostly fighting the process.

The state's governor and one of its top congressmen maintain that global warming isn't caused by man-made emissions. While congressional Democrats want the country to get more of its energy from green sources, many Texas politicians want to protect their fossil fuel constituents.

Because of explosive growth in the renewable energy and green building sector, continued volatility in energy prices, and overwhelming business and natural resources assets, the State of Texas has a strong business case for developing the renewable energy industry to become a job-creation engine of the state’s economy. Texas has created markets for renewable energy companies with aggressive public policy goals for renewable energy generation, supported these markets with transparent and predictable regulations for installation and grid connection, and in less than ten years has moved from a state with virtually no developed renewable energy to a world leader in wind power production. With its highly-developed traditional energy industry and related high-tech clusters, significant renewable natural resources, and in its role as one of the largest drivers of economic growth in the U.S., the State of Texas has a natural competitive edge in the renewable energy industry. Yet growth in this industry has underperformed Texas’s assets. With the emerging nature of the renewable energy industry, there have been only the beginnings of a coordinated effort to support industrial development through economic development incentives, local market creation, and workforce development efforts.

A carbon dioxide cap-and-trade plan proposed under a House of Representatives climate change and energy bill would hike wholesale power prices in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas approximately $10 billion in 2013, according to a study issued Tuesday by the grid operator.

The bill by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, Democrat-California, would create a cap-and-trade program in 2012 to reduce emissions 3% below 2005 levels by 2013, 20% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. Waxman expects a committee vote on his bill by month-end.

On April 16, 2009, the Department of Energy's first draft solicitation for smart grid monies proposed to fund multiple, smaller projects, establishing a $20 MM per-project ceiling for federal matching funds. In response, several investor-owned utilities (IOU) have suggested that these funding levels are inadequate. Public comments from DOE officials last week suggest the Department may attempt to respond to utilities' concerns. We anticipate two potential categories of DOE responses:

• Option #1: Raise the cap on a subset of projects to $60-80 MM to test commercial-scale deployment on utility systems; or
• Option #2: Consolidate funding into 1-2 commercial-scale deployment contracts.

Many solar panels are made using "spectacularly inefficient" manufacturing techniques that could undermine their environmental benefits, according to new research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The study, released last week, found that many of the cutting edge processes used to make computer chips, solar cells and nanomaterials use an "alarming" amount of energy compared to established manufacturing techniques.

Dear Senator Comyn:
As efforts continue to develop greenhouse gas emission regulations our office is evaluating the significant impact such proposals could have on our state. We are committed to working with you to ensure a sustainable balance of strong economic development and concern for the environmental health of our state.

The energy industry plays a critical role in the Texas economy, employing nearly 375,000 people and providing more than $35 billion in total wages in 2006. The high concentration of energy intensive products manufactured here are used across the U.S. and the world. Chemical production, computer and electronic products and transportation equipment are among the top five production industries in the state. The transportation sector is an integral part of moving goods from production areas to market. As such, additional regulation of these industries through mandatory climate policies will have a considerable effect on the character of our economy.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) was selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the Department of Commerce, to facilitate the development of a smart grid interoperability roadmap for the electricity sector. The ultimate aim of the program will be to provide a framework to aid in the modernization of the nation's transmission and distribution system.

Oilman Ray Hunt was attending a Houston energy conference in early 1998 when he decided to shift his world.

The chairman of Hunt Oil wanted to expand into the electricity industry and was looking for an executive who shared the family's values and work ethic, who could fit easily into the family business founded by wildcatter H.L. Hunt.

"Before I go to my Rolodex and start calling people I know who would fit that description, it occurs to me that I have known somebody like that for over 30 years – and that person is you," Ray said on the phone.