Renewable Energy Rates in Texas

GreenChoice by Austin Energy may not be the best solution for your energy needs after all. This is clear since the energy rates in Texas have been going down and GreenChoice, which offers energy from renewable means of Sun and Wind, proves to just be more expensive. GreenChoice helps customers decide whether a lock in electricity contract period of 5 yrs would be more suitable or would a 10 yr contract do more good. As it turns out, in its most recent offering of renewable energy units, about 99 percent of the allotment has gone unsold.

Consider this - a 5-year subscription to GreenChoice costs 8.0 cents per kWh, while a 10-year subscription comes with a charge of 9.5 cents per kWh.

Now, the regular residential rate for conventional electricity is 3.75 cents per kWh for the first 500 kWh, and 6.02 or 7.82 cents thereafter, for winter and summer months respectively.

It is lesser for large commercial users - about 1.5 cents per kWh.

GreenChoice is the arm of Austin Energy for renewable energy resource. The basic problem is that while Austin Energy’s main business is selling power from coal and gas plants that they own, GreenChoice competes with that only.

Energy from Carbon Dioxide

If you did not know how Ethanol can produce energy, it is sad. Prior to 2006 it was believed that energy produced from Ethanol is less than what is needed to produce ethanol itself! This was a part of controversy in USA where the major source of ethanol was corn. Corns have to be cultivated before extracting ethanol from them and eventually energy derived from Ethanol.

But in 2006 deeper studies indicated that actually Ethanol produced energy almost twice of what was required to obtain it. Thus ending the controversy.
The study also indicated that corn ethanol actually reduces petroleum use by about 95 percent per gallon of fuel. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 13 percent. So why not use Ethanol or other biodiesel after all and save the environment.

Well, in the US alone, out of the total transportation fuel, ethanol accounts for about 2% (as of 2006). Ethanol powers Brazil's major road transportation.


"The U.S. Department of Energy aims to replace 30 percent of the liquid petroleum transportation fuel with biofuels by 2025."

Now, lets say we find an alternative to produce ethanol than just corn. Lets say that we devise the technology of producing ethanol (and hence energy) from something we wish could reduce like CO2 (Carbon Dioxide). Wouldn't it be great to see a cycle that looked like:



No doubt this is one great achievement. We could for an extent:
a. Use renewable source of energy permanently and leave petroleum, coal and other non-renewables for more important work.
b. Limit greenhouse gases and thus global warming, the biggest challenge today.
c. Get the environment a lot cleaner than what is it today.

So here is the news: this is something that "The Dow Chemical Co. will partner with a Florida-based company to turn carbon dioxide -- the most prevalent greenhouse gas -- into ethanol."

The ethanol is secreted by Algae which is captured by these companies. Apparantly, they have been using ethanol produced through these methods for making plastics. The project undertaken by the company claims to use around 2 tons of CO2 daily. This method produces around 6000 gallons of ethanol per acre land as opposed to cane ethanol which gives out just 400 gallons.

As the project matures, we sincerely hope this is scaled commercially.

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine in Texas

To your left is an image of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine. The other form is rather commonly known and is the Horizontol Axis Wind Turbine. Both the forms derive energy from wind by same basic principles of physics but they sure do act in different ways. And one form has advantages over the others.

Recently, a VAWT has been erected at West Texas A&M University at Canyon. A Fort Worth-based renewable energy solutions company is behind this idea.

Luckily for them, and unlucky for many of the electricity customers in Texas who faced power outage, the Turbine moved its blade owing to the Texas thunderstorm. Though it is still not known about the level of noise that it may create but surely things would be done to keep them to a minimum. Technologists are always working on it. The main reason behind that is because the first Texas VAWT has been erected in an Urban area. Another area of exploration in the coming months would be the level of energy efficieny we are going to get with the new machine.

The Texas based energy company that has made this possible is a start up by the name of Skydrill (suitable name!). Though, the machine is still under testing phase, Skydrill is sure they will soon bag Target Corp as their first customer.

Being a Wind Energy Company or a Solar Energy Company is a thing of the past now, what is being more stressed upon and what really is more important is being a Renewable Energy Company. While the non-renewable sources of energy have rendered the prices to drill the sky, I am sure companies like Skydrill would be a relief for many of us.