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Texas drivers continue to pump the brakes on EVs, shows new report

EV adoption

Texas falls among the middle of the pack when it comes to EV adoption, according to a new report. Photo via Unsplash

Even though Texas is home to Tesla, a major manufacturer of electric vehicles, motorists in the Lone Star State aren’t in the fast lane when it comes to getting behind the wheel of an EV.

U.S. Department of Energy data compiled by Visual Capitalist shows Texas has 689.9 EV registrations per 100,000 people, putting it in 20th place for EV adoption among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. A report released in 2023 by the University of Houston and Texas Southern University found that a little over 5 percent of Texans drove EVs.

California leads all states for EV adoption, with 3,025.6 registrations per 100,000 people, according to Visual Capitalist. In second place is Washington, with an EV adoption rate of 1,805.4 per 100,000.

A recent survey by AAA revealed lingering reluctance among Americans to drive all-electric vehicles.

In the survey, just 16 percent of U.S. adults reported being “very likely” or “likely” to buy an all-electric vehicle as their next car. That’s the lowest level of interest in EVs recorded by AAA since 1999. The share of consumers indicating they’d be “very unlikely” or “unlikely” to buy an EV rose to 63 percent, the highest level since 2022.

Factors cited by EV critics included:

  • High cost to repair batteries (62 percent).
  • High purchase price (59 percent).
  • Ineffective transportation for long-distance travel (57 percent).
  • Lack of convenient public charging stations (56 percent).
  • Fear of battery running out of power while driving (55 percent).

“Since AAA began tracking consumer interest in fully electric vehicles, we’ve observed fluctuations in enthusiasm,” said Doug Shupe, corporate communications manager for AAA Texas. “While automakers continue investing in electrification and expanding EV offerings, many drivers still express hesitation — often tied to concerns about cost, range, and charging infrastructure.”

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EDP Renewables North America unveiled the new Sandrini I & II Solar Energy Park near Bakersfield, California. Photo via Pixabay

Houston renewables developer powers two new California solar parks

now open

EDP Renewables North America LLC, a Houston-based developer, owner, and operator of renewable energy projects, has unveiled a solar energy park in California whose customers are Houston-based Shell Energy North America and the Eureka, California-based Redwood Coast Energy Authority.

Sandrini I & II Solar Energy Park, located near Bakersfield, is capable of supplying 300 megawatts of power. The park was completed in two phases.

“Sandrini I & II represent EDP Renewables’ continued commitment to investing in California and are a direct contribution to California's admirable target of achieving 100 percent clean electricity by 2045,” says Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO of EDP. “The Golden State is known for its leadership in solar energy, and EDP Renewables is elated to meet the growing demand for reliable clean energy sources.”

Shell signed a 15-year deal to buy power from the 200-megawatt Sandrini I, and the Redwood Coast Energy Authority signed a 15-year deal to buy power from the 100-megawatt Sandrini II.

In July, EDP announced the opening of the 210-megawatt Pearl River Solar Park in Mississippi. Earlier in 2024, the company debuted the 175-megawatt Crooked Lake Solar Park in Arkansas and the 74-megawatt Misenheimer Solar Park in North Carolina. Click here to read more.

Texas has the most utility-scale solar capacity installed and is home to 20 percent of the overall U.S. solar fleet. Photo via Getty Images

Texas passes California on national report of top solar states

by the numbers

For the first time, Texas has passed California in the second quarter of 2024 to become the top solar state in the country.

The American Clean Power Association's quarterly market report found that, by adding 3,293 megawatts of new solar year-to-date, Texas has the most utility-scale solar capacity installed, comprising 20 percent of the overall U.S. solar fleet. The American Clean Power Association, which represents over 800 energy storage, wind, utility-scale solar, transmission, and clean hydrogen companies, found that Texas is home to 21,932 megawatts of capacity,

By utilizing clean energy initiatives, Texas included 1.6 gigawatts of new solar, 574 megawatts of storage, and 366 megawatts of onshore wind. With more than 28,000 megawatts, Texas had the highest volume of clean power development capacity in the second quarter. About 163,000 megawatts of capacity overall are in the works throughout the United States. Texas ranks No. 1 for total operating wind capacity and total operating solar capacity, and comes in second for operating storage capacity.

Texas again led in production levels with clean power construction projects nationally, which boasts more than 19,000 megawatts worth of clean power energy currently under construction. With almost 28.3 gigawatts in advanced development or under construction, Texas continues to come in at No.1, as California is next with over 16.4 gigawatts in the state’s project pipeline.

California added more than 1,900 megawatts of new clean power capacity in the second quarter, with its clean energy development behavior leaning more towards adding storage, which amounts to 60 percent of California’s year-to-date clean power installations.

According to the report from SmartAsset, the Lone Star State has the most clean energy capacity at 56,405 megawatts due to its sheer size for solar capacity, but continues to trail states with similar geographic characteristics in overall clean energy prevalence.

Another report published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, says Texas will make up 35 percent of new utility-scale solar capacity in the U.S. this year, followed by California (10 percent) and Florida (6 percent).

While Texas’ solar efforts have shown positive trends, the state ranked No. 38 in a report by WalletHub that determined it was the thirteenth least green state.

Under two 15-year deals, Southern California Edison has agreed to buy a total of 320 megawatts of geothermal power from Fervo Energy. Photo via Getty Images

Houston geothermal company picks up power purchase agreement in California

heating up

Houston-based Fervo Energy, a provider of geothermal power, has signed up one of the country’s largest utilities as a new customer.

Under two 15-year deals, Southern California Edison has agreed to buy a total of 320 megawatts of geothermal power from Fervo. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. The power will be enough to deliver electricity to the equivalent of 350,000 homes.

Southern California Edison, based in Rosemead, California, serves about 15 million people throughout a 50,000-square-mile area in California.

The utility will purchase the power from Fervo’s 400-megawatt Cape Station plant, which is under construction in southwest Utah. The plant’s first phase, providing 70 megawatts of power, is expected to be online by 2026.

“This announcement is another milestone in California’s commitment to clean zero-carbon electricity,” David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, says in a news release.

“Enhanced geothermal systems complement our abundant wind and solar resources by providing critical base load when those sources are limited,” he adds. “This is key to ensuring reliability as we continue to transition away from fossil fuels.”

In June, Fervo announced it would supply 115 megawatts of geothermal power for Google’s two data centers in Nevada. Two years ago, Fervo signed a deal with energy aggregators in California to supply 53 megawatts of geothermal power from Cape Station.

“As electrification increases and climate change burdens already fragile infrastructure, geothermal will only play a bigger role in U.S. power markets,” says Dawn Owens, Fervo's head of development and commercial markets.

———

This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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TotalEnergies expands solar joint venture with $1.2B portfolio in Texas, Ohio

solar expansion

TotalEnergies, a French company whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, announced this month that it is expanding its renewable energy joint venture with New York-based investment firm KKR by adding 700 megawatts of utility-scale solar projects.

The deal will add three utility-scale solar assets in Texas and Ohio, which are expected to reach commercial operation by Q1 2027, according to a news release from the company. The portfolio is valued at $1.2 billion.

The 50/50 joint venture between TotalEnergies and KKR currently holds 1.4 gigawatts of renewable energy and will grow to 2.1 gigawatts.

The new deal is expected to close this year. Once completed, TotalEnergies will operate the assets. The electricity generated from the solar projects will be sold to third parties, the company reports.

The companies originally formed the joint venture about a year ago when TotalEnergies sold KKR a 50 percent stake in a North American solar portfolio valued at $1.25 billion. The deal originally included six utility-scale solar assets, primarily located in the U.S.

“TotalEnergies is a renewable energy industry leader globally, and we are thrilled to establish this joint venture with the TotalEnergies team to support their renewables business," Cecilio Velasco, managing director KKR, said in a release last year. “We have long been investors in renewables through our infrastructure platform, having committed more than $23 billion to date in energy transition investments. TotalEnergies’ North American solar portfolio is a great fit for us, representing high-quality renewable energy assets with long term contracts.”

TotalEnergies reports that by June 2026 it held more than 37 gigawatts of gross renewable power generation capacity. It aims to achieve over 100 terawatt-hours of net electricity production by 2030.

The company signed a major power purchase agreement with Google earlier this year. Through the deal, TotalEnergies will supply the tech giant with 1 gigawatt of solar power for its data centers in Texas over a 15-year span.

However, the company also recently redirected nearly $1 billion in capital away from wind energy projects and "decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States." Read more here.

Houston researchers develop compact carbon capture tech for data centers

AI emissions

Two scientists from the University of Houston have been experimenting with new carbon capture systems that fit inside a standard shipping container, which have the potential to make eliminating carbon output from industrial sites much easier.

The capture of industrial carbon is an important complement to the fight against climate change, as well as winning tax credits for businesses that use carbon capture technology.

The problem is that such systems are often measured in acres, making them expensive to build and extremely power-hungry to actually use. UH Engineering Professor Mim Rahimi and former UH Ph.D. student Ahmad Hassan (now a postdoctoral associate at Harvard) have managed to fit their new system, the Small Modular Electrochemical Container (SMECs), inside a standard 40-foot shipping crate, making them compact and modular enough to be installed almost anywhere for operations of all sizes. Their research was recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“With a conventional system, you’re building a 130-foot-tall structure designed for a specific power plant. With our technology, we can adjust the capacity by simply turning containers on or off,” Rahimi said in a news release. “That flexibility is particularly important for data centers, where electricity can come from a combination of natural gas and renewable sources.”

Rahimi and Hassan used simulated gas models to show that under optimal conditions, the SMEC used electrochemically mediated amine regeneration (EMAR) cells developed in Rahimi’s lab to capture 90 percent of carbon under optimal conditions through 300 cycles over 50 hours.

Encouraged, the team then modeled a 360-megawatt natural gas power plant associated with OpenAI’s Stargate AI data center project in Abilene, Texas. In addition to the savings on infrastructure costs, 20 of the researchers’ shipping container systems were able to capture 98 percent of carbon from Stargate’s 875-acre campus based on the model.

The looming energy costs and subsequent carbon emissions from data centers are a real concern. Estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy hypothesize that 12 percent of America’s energy needs could be gobbled up by the centers as soon as 2028. That is a massive new source of carbon. The flexibility of the SMEC means they can be deployed wherever the centers spring up.

“We’re taking a technology that traditionally requires enormous infrastructure and finding a way to fit it inside a shipping container,” Rahimi added in the release. “That opens up entirely new possibilities for how and where carbon capture systems can be used.”

In the future, the researchers say they plan to look at ways to adapt the technology to capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

Hertha Metals breaks ground on $100M high-purity iron factory in Conroe

coming soon

Shortly after announcing a $133.65 Series A funding round, Conroe-based Hertha Metals broke ground Oct. 8 on a $100 million factory that will produce steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron.

Hertha’s Chalyx plant, located in Conroe, will manufacture a total of about 10,000 metric tons per year of magnet-grade and steel-grade high-purity iron. The factory will use Hertha’s single-step process to generate high-purity iron for rare-earth-magnet and steel manufacturers in the U.S.

Hertha says Chalyx will be the first U.S. commercial plant for production of magnet-grade high-purity iron.

Chalyx is being built next to Hertha’s headquarters and its Pi100 pilot plant, which will remain in operation. Chalyx and Pi100 will form the first modern-day iron and steel “innovation complex” in the U.S., the company says.

“I founded Hertha Metals because I believed we could significantly improve how the world makes iron and steel from ore, and that an industry so fundamental to our future still had enormous room for invention,” Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha, said in a press release.

The 4-year-old startup says the Chalyx complex will lay the foundation for its first 500,000-ton-per-year steel mill.

Chalyx’s first priority is making high-purity iron for U.S. manufacturers of rare-earth magnets, Hertha says. These magnets are critical components for electric vehicles, data centers, wind turbines and defense systems.

China produces an estimated 94 percent of high-purity iron for rare-earth magnets, according to Hertha.

Aside from iron for rare-earth magnets, Chalyx will make iron and steel for pilot projects in the steel industry.

The plant is expected to come online in late 2027, with production of magnet-grade high-purity iron starting in early 2028.

Today, Hertha employs 32 people, the company says. Once it’s fully operating, the Chalyx plant will employ about 50 people.

Just ahead of the groundbreaking, Hertha announced the $133.65 million Series A round, co-led by Khosla Ventures and Doerr Capital. The round included a $65 million equity investment from the Pentagon.

“Iron and steel have shaped human progress for thousands of years. And I believe there is still an enormous amount left to invent,” Meroueh said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

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