A new report gives Texas high marks on its efforts in renewable energy, including the top ranking on wind power: Called Renewables on the Rise, the report is from Environment Texas Research & Policy Center, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, and finds that Texas comes in at or near the top of the list in key areas including wind power, solar power, and number of EVs.
The report looks at the growth of six key clean energy technologies across the U.S. over the past decade: solar power, wind power, battery storage, energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and electric vehicle charging stations.
Texas rankings are as follows:
- No. 1 in the U.S. for wind power generation
- No. 2 for solar power generation
- No. 2 for battery storage. The total number of EV charging ports in 2023 was 8,637.
- No. 3 for the number of electric vehicle registrations through 2023. The total number of electric vehicle registrations in Texas in 2023 was 210,433 — up from 2022 when the total number of EVs was 149,000 vehicles. The number of EVs that were newly registered in Texas in 2023 was 61,433.
Texas has seen a more than 70-fold increase in the amount of electricity it gets from the sun and a nearly 95-fold increase in battery capacity since 2014. In 2023, wind and solar energy produced 31 percent of the state’s electricity.
The top 10 wind power states are as follows, in order:
- Texas
- Iowa
- Oklahoma
- Kansas
- Illinois
- Colorado
- New Mexico
- California
- North Dakota
- Minnesota
The lowest ranking states for windpower include Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Washington DC.
The top 10 for 2023 EV registrations are as follows:
- California
- Florida
- Texas
- Washington
- New Jersey
- New York
- Illinois
- Georgia
- Arizona
- Colorado
The least EV-friendly state is North Dakota, which comes in at the bottom of the list along with Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, and West Virginia.
“Texas is truly setting the pace in the race toward 100% clean and renewable energy,” says Environment Texas Research & Policy Center City Hall Advocate Ian Seamans in a statement.
Beyond those top rankings in wind and solar energy, Texas has seen a 40-fold increase in the number of registered electric vehicles — helped along by supportive policies from the federal government, improving technologies, and falling prices, the report says.
Electric vehicles are also emerging as an important presence during the country's increasingly extreme weather, Seamans says.
”As climate change increases the severity of hurricanes, back-up power capable EVs are also increasingly becoming life-saving equipment to residents along the Texas coast,” he says.
In addition to highlighting states that have made the most progress in adopting renewable energy technologies, the research details the gains achieved nationally over the past decade.
America produces more than three times as much power from the sun, the wind and the earth as it did in 2014, with growth in all 50 states.
The analysis comes as Texas is set to receive $360 million from the federal government to interconnect the ERCOT grid with other southern states, potentially bringing cheap, clean, Texan energy to hundreds of thousands more.
“Millions of Americans and Texans are already reaping the benefits of the dramatic clean energy progress we’ve made so far,” Seamans says. “With federal tax credits turbocharging clean energy, now is the time for states to lean in to clean energy. In the upcoming legislative session we need legislators to cut the red tape for rooftop solar and reject efforts to hamstring the incredible growth of clean energy in Texas.”
