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Rice University releases data, analysis on future of global energy

What does the future of global energy hold? A Rice University institute published its research-backed findings on the subject. Photo via Getty Images

The Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy has released a collection of articles addressing the most pressing policy issues in global energy.

The inaugural Energy Insights was supported by ongoing research at CES, with a goal of better understanding the energy landscape over the next few years.

“While no one can predict exactly what comes next, if we are paying attention, the road we travel provides plenty of signposts that can be used to understand the challenges and opportunities ahead,” wrote CES Senior Director Kenneth Medlock.

The articles, which are available online in a 120-page packet, focus on a wide variety of key issues — Texas electricity policy, energy and geopolitics in Eurasia, how the energy transition will affect the Middle East, the growing necessity of minerals and materials, and more.

All in all, the new Energy Insights will look at the ever-changing energy landscape.

“Industrialization, improved living standards, technological and process innovation, and increased mobility of people and goods, to name a few, are all hallmarks of continual energy transition,” Medlock adds. “The process is not done. The past lives on through long-lived legacy infrastructures, and the future evolves most rapidly when it can leverage that legacy. Exactly how though, remains an elusive topic.”

Contributors to the publication include: Medlock, Julie Cohn, Gabe Collins, Ted Loch-Temzelides, Jim Krane, Osamah Alsayegh, Francisco Monaldi, Tilsa Oré Mónago, Michelle Michot Foss, Steven Miles, Mark Finley, Mahmoud El-Gamal, Chris Bronk, Rachel Meidl and Ed Emmett.

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A View From HETI

Ørsted, which maintains offices in Houston and Austin, just flipped the switch on its 468-megawatt Mockingbird Solar Center in Lamar County, a project that also established a nearby nature preserve. Photo courtesy of Ørsted

The largest solar project in the global portfolio of Danish renewable energy company Ørsted is now supplying power to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.

Ørsted, which maintains offices in Houston and Austin, just flipped the switch on its 468-megawatt Mockingbird Solar Center in Lamar County, which is northeast of Dallas-Fort Worth and directly south of the Texas-Oklahoma border. The $500 million project can produce enough power for 80,000 homes and businesses.

ERCOT provides power to more than 25 million Texas customers, representing 90 percent of the state’s electric load.

In conjunction with the solar project, Ørsted donated 953 acres to The Nature Conservancy to establish the Smiley Meadow Preserve. This area, adjacent to the Mockingbird facility, protects a tallgrass prairie habitat featuring more than 400 species of grasses and wildflowers. Accounting for land already owned by the conservancy, Smiley Meadow exceeds 1,000 acres.

“Through the power of partnership, Ørsted has helped The Nature Conservancy protect an irreplaceable landscape that might otherwise have been lost to development,” Suzanne Scott, The Nature Conservancy’s Texas state director, says in a news release.

Mockingbird Solar Center is part of Ørsted’s $20 billion investment in U.S. energy generation. With this project now online, Ørsted owns a portfolio of more than six gigawatts of onshore wind, solar, and battery storage projects that either are operating or are being built.

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