Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: July 2, 2025
Microgrid funding in Texas!
Texas has authorized $1.8 billion to fund microgrids for critical facilities.
Tell your state leaders to incentivize microgrids for critical facilities!
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Reasons For Hope
After the defeat of senseless anti-renewables bills, the Republican-controlled state legislature of Texas has passed $1.8 billion in funding for the Texas Backup Power Package Program, which was created in 2023 but never received funding until now. These funds will go to supporting the build-out of microgrids to provide secure, off-grid backup power supplies to keep critical facilities across Texas online during disasters, including hospitals, nursing homes, police and fire stations, water treatment plants, and more. The support is technology-neutral, available for solar-and-batteries or small-scale fossil gas, providing $500 in state funding per kilowatt of backup generation capacity installed up to 2.5 megawatts (2,500 kilowatts).
“Now those funds will presumably begin to flow — and I think that puts us in the upper echelon of states for microgrid policy…
I think one of the most important things that happened this session is this really broad-based business coalition communicating to anyone who would listen that these policies trying to restrict development of renewables aren’t helpful.”
— Doug Lewin, Texas energy analyst. (Check out his work on Substack).
As Texas continues to lead the U.S. in deploying solar power, the underlying superior economics of solar and battery power likely mean this program will eventually result in more clean energy! It’s also a vital climate resilience measure, insuring against the risk of a future super-storm taking out power lines to healthcare centers and emergency services. Incentivizing microgrids for life-saving critical facilities is just a sensible policy idea, and more U.S. states should follow this model.
We are energy, body and soul.