Renewable energy sources still provide insufficient power to meet the demands of extreme winters. | Pixabay
Renewable energy sources still provide insufficient power to meet the demands of extreme winters. | Pixabay
While people in Texas deal with "rolling blackouts" as a result of rare winter storms that have impacted their renewable energy sources, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy said this should serve as a warning for Michigan.
"As Michigan's utilities switch to heavier reliance on fickle energy sources, lawmakers should adopt a new reliable energy standard that requires any new electricity generation source to be fully dispatchable," Jason Hayes, the Mackinac Center's director of environmental policy, said in a release on the Center's website. "Michigan residents should not have to depend on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing in order to have reliable electricity."
Hayes wrote a letter to Sen. Dan Lauwers (R-Brockway Township) and Rep. Joe Bellino (R-Monroe), who chair the energy committees in the Michigan Senate and House respectively. He encouraged them to pass a law that would force new energy-generating facilities to be able to meet usage demands as needed.
Hayes said the stories coming out of Texas and other states that rely heavily on renewable energy sources is something Michigan lawmakers should be paying attention to -- especially since the state is moving towards other sources of power and closing the "reliable, affordable energy generation facilities" like nuclear, natural gas and coal.
He noted that Michigan should be reminded of how nuclear energy and coal played an important role in heating homes and businesses during the Polar Vortex of 2019 when the state's major supply of natural gas failed. Right now, Texas can't say the same since they're further along in the transition to renewable energy. He said Texas is just one example that proves renewable energy grids are "not up to the task" when temperatures go to the extreme.
That issue, coupled with a push for electric vehicles, which would create a surge in demand for electricity on the grids, are why he's asked the Legislature to rethink renewable energy standards.
"These policies will prove to be a recipe for disaster whenever we face weather difficulties," Hayes wrote in the letter to the Lauwers and Bellino.
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