The US state, the country’s largest oil producer, is converting to green energy, including wind and solar. Some French groups, including Engie, are taking advantage of this new market.
It’s a growing market, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine. In Texas, America’s oil and gas state par excellence, renewable energy is booming. A development, in particular via solar and wind power, which interests certain French groups such as Engie. The supplier has just inaugurated two sites between Dallas and Waco, cities in central Texas.
“The C02 emissions avoided thanks to all these wind turbines is roughly the equivalent of the emission of 150,000 cars per year.”
Frank Demaille, deputy managing director of the Engie groupat franceinfo
Here, we see no oil wells but fields as far as the eye can see. Straddling Limestone and Navarro counties, south of Dallas, gigantic wind turbines have been installed. “It is one of our largest sites, with 300 megawatts”explains Frank Demaille, deputy general manager of the Engie group, who came especially from France for the inauguration.
Wind power, a quarter of the electricity produced in Texas
A total of 88 wind turbines were planted out of 160 miles2. The blades are hung 120 meters above the ground, much higher than those found in France, and for twice the efficiency. “There is more wind in the United States. It is more constant, stronger, more regularadds Frank Demaille. Texas is 25% larger than France, with roughly half the population. You have landowners who have very large areas, so you have the capacity, by signing leases with them, to be able to develop this kind of project.”
In Texas are indeed some of the largest wind farms in the world, more than 600 in some counties. Wind power therefore now represents a quarter of the electricity produced in the State, and Engie, like others, has joined the ranks: nearly a quarter of the group’s current renewable projects are in the USA.
A promising and accessible territory
The development of renewable energies in Texas by Engie also involves solar energy. In Abbott, near Waco, 674,000 solar panels, lined up less than two meters from the ground in 8 miles2, turn slowly to follow the rays of the sun. The owners of the land, invited for the inauguration of the site, have signed rental contracts with Engie for the next 30 years.
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“When you grow, you have to deal with the weather, what it’s going to cost to harvest”says Alvin Soukup, from a family of landowners. “Is it going to grow? Is it going to be hot, dry? Is it going to rain? Or is a hailstorm going to mess up your crop? was born and we grew up with it. We had good years and terrible years. It’s a lot of stress for the family that operates the farm… Now we have a way to live in a greener way. The the sun always shines in Texas!”he smiles.
Josie Soukup, another member of this family of five siblings, adds that “You can get more out of this land with solar than with agriculture, much more than anyone would have imagined.” However, she refuses to give figures, assuring that this may vary depending on the sunshine.
“It’s always going faster in the United States, but Texas in particular is going very fast.”
Emmanuel Sbravati, vice-president of Engie in North Americaat franceinfo
Engie, for its part, is kicking in: the group explains that the subsidies for the energy transition, provided for by Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act voted in the summer of 2022, will further improve its projects in the United States, where the installation conditions are more flexible and faster than in Europe. “Texas is an area where there is a lot of land and where the regulations mean that you can go very fast”explains Emmanuel Sbravati, vice-president in charge of commercial operations for Engie in North America. “Here, on average, we’re going to take 4-5 years to get a land project out and have it operational, between the start and the end. In France, we’re going to add 3-4 years because we’re going to have more administrative procedures, a lot of appeals… It goes much faster than in France.”
A green revolution?
And local communities are also there, thanks to the taxes generated by renewable energies. “It’s more than 1.7 million dollars that comes directly to the school, it’s huge for a district of our size”illustrates Eric Pustejovsky, the superintendent of the Abbott school district. “We have 285 students from kindergarten to 12th grade, and we wouldn’t have the possibility of having so much money without this partnership. Without this project, we would still be working in a building from 1966.”
If Texas is the world’s seventh emitter of greenhouse gases, just behind Germany, it is closing coal-fired power plants because wind and solar power are very profitable. It is even the American state where in 2022 there were the largest number of renewable energy projects for businesses.