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How Solar & Wind Are Transforming Texas · Clean Power Hour

• 0:50
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Talked about the ERCOT dashboards really great, and it's just very you can get a little energy education just browsing through there, they do a great job. But I think my reaction to it's different than most people, because when I looked at that today, the first thing I thought about was 100 of us testifying at the Capitol during the legislative session to fight anti renewable bills. That's why we had to do that, because solar and wind are a real player.
• 1:25
  intro: Are you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean Power Hour, our host Tim Montague, bring you the best in solar, batteries and clean technologies every week. Want to go deeper into decarbonization.
• 1:36
  intro: We do too. We're here to help you understand and command the commercial, residential and utility, solar, wind and storage industries. So let's get to it together. We can speed the energy transition
• 1:52
  Tim Montague: today on the Clean Power Hour the Texas renewables market. My guest is Raina Hornaday. She has an incredible origin story. She is the founder and CEO of Caprock renewables.
• 2:05
  Tim Montague: She's been involved in wind, in solar, in microgrids. She's on the board of soul smart. She has her fingers in so many things. I wish I could talk to you all day, Raina, but welcome to the
• 2:15
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: show.
• 2:15
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:17
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: It's my pleasure.
• 2:19
  Tim Montague: It is truly an honor. And before we go any further, please tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got interested in renewables.
• 2:31
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Sure happy to be here. You've said.
• 2:34
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: My name is Raina Hornaday. I am currently in Austin, Texas. I've been a Texan now for 25 years, but I'm from eastern New Mexico.
• 2:45
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: My family home set it out there in 1906 and when you grow up in the country and you farm and ranch and you're part of that community and environment conservation and Water and Electric conservation, and how to work with renewable energy resources, just for everyday life, is really just part of who we are and what we do. And so it just was very natural. We had solar wells, and we use solar, of course, all the time for growing crops and all the natural things. Windmills were a big part of our life for water, and could not survive without wind and windmills, and even before, there are transmission lines out there, every kind of homestead had a wind charger for electricity. So it was a very natural fit for me to continue and get more involved in renewables throughout my career, and it's just been such, such a great career path for me, and I see it benefiting landowners and communities, and it's just been very rewarding to see it grow so much in my lifetime.
• 3:59
  Tim Montague: So paint us a picture the cap rock ranch in southeastern New Mexico. What?
• 4:03
  Tim Montague: What is the what? What all goes on there? And tell us a little bit about your family's history in the wind industry.
• 4:14
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Okay, so my dad's family had homesteaded on the High Plains. It's kind of the Northern plateau, the llano, Estacado, and kind of the middle of the state, but very flat. You can see 365, all the way.
• 4:28
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: There's nothing seeing you, impairing your vision all the way around, which is a unique, I think, to how a lot of people grow up. So sunrises, sunsets, super clear storms. You know, you can observe a storm all day.
• 4:46
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: But my my father's family were dry land farmers, and so my dad was a dry land farmer, but he was also involved in the eastern plains Council of Governments.
• 4:56
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: He was an executive director there for 30 years. And so he, I mean, it is very windy. The wind resource on our property, and in that part of the country is some of the best in the country, which you don't really appreciate when you're day to day farming and working with cattle, because it's often a, you know, you can't hear and you can't hear a rattlesnake, if it's, you know, if you're opening a gate and there's rattlesnake there, I mean, the wind is is a huge issue. You have to park your truck a certain way. You can only open so many doors at a time, so we just work with the wind. But like I said, before, we have to have it. If the wind doesn't blow for a couple of days in a row, and it's we're in a drought, we'll have to haul water for the cows. So we, really, we, you know, are very aware of the wind. And how much it blows and if it doesn't blow.
• 5:55
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: So it's just like I said, it's funny to be so so connected with it. So my dad, as part of his work with the eastern plains Council of Governments, put up a small MET tower on our farm overlooking the cap rock looks down onto our ranch, which is a cow calf operation, and so that that MET tower gathered data for a couple years, and I ran across one of the chips the other day, and so I he was able to retain that data. And when projects are built around met data, that's how they're financed. And so I took that data to renewable energy roundup event in Fredericksburg, put on by the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance, which I was on the board of and supported for years and years, and I'm still working with the found the historical foundation that has all that information of all the work they did. So I went to that event and interviewed a couple developers for wind, and that was how the cap rock wind project ended up being, becoming in existence as a development, and then it was constructed, and I told you earlier, but It's recently been repowered the 80 megawatt, 80 megawatts, and the 80 wind turbines were actually taken down and decommissioned, and they weren't repowered because they weren't the type of wind turbines that really could be repowered.
• 7:34
  Tim Montague: So they they developed, they ended up developing a 80 megawatt wind farm on the property, right? Or 8480 megawatts, yeah, okay, and this was back in the early 2000s right? Yes.
• 7:47
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: It was the first utility scale wind project in in New Mexico, and leeward, leeward owns it now, and they, they utilize that 80 megawatt interconnect and put up 80 megawatts of bigger turbines.
• 8:00
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: So it's it now, it's to to the west of our property. So you, you can't, I mean, it very much changed our landscape at the ranch, because we could see all 80 turbines from from the ranch and now, I mean, they're farther down the cap rock so. But, you know, the rural communities appreciate developments like this because they come with, you know, benefits for the communities?
• 8:25
  Tim Montague: Oh, for sure. So, yeah. I mean, I think sometimes we forget that renewables are part of the landscape. You know, with with wind turbines used primarily for pumping water, but then also for powering off grid operations, right with electricity dating way, way back. And of course, there's a modern era in wind for electricity generation, which is what we're talking about here with your with your ranch. And now we've reached a point where these projects are reaching 20 years in, you know, of life, and they need to be repowered. And so towers are coming down, and you're getting new technology, and away you go. So well, let's get we have a lot of ground to cover, so we we have to move on.
• 9:14
  Tim Montague: Unfortunately, I'd love to just geek out on wind in Southeast New Mexico, but you have your fingers in so many things and and you know what? One of the things we're going to show our listener today, if you're watching on video, is the ERCOT dashboard. And you know, Texas is a fascinating market because it is the nexus of fossil technology, gas, oil, but also renewables, right? It's a major, major wind market, and now a major solar market. Over 10 gigawatts of solar was installed in 2024 in Texas, right? That's years worth, many years worth, sometimes a decade's worth of solar for most American markets.
• 9:59
  Tim Montague: Texas has more solar going into it now on an annual basis than California, which was the big dog before, and and, yes, there are headwinds from the federal level against wind and solar, but guess what? There's still going to be a lot of wind and solar development, and that's just because it's cost effective, right?
• 10:26
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: The momentum is so, so strong.
• 10:28
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: There's just not no way to stop it at this point,
• 10:31
  Tim Montague: exactly, there is no stopping wind, solar and batteries. But let's talk about the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association, Tria, which joined with clean TX in 2020, as I understand it. So now it's goes by the Montague clean TX. But for for those of us who don't work in Texas directly, this landscape is is little understood. So tell us about Tria and why you're so committed to that organization.
• 11:03
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Well, like I said, that's that their event that they put on, the renewable energy Roundup, was kind of like an outdoor event with rainwater catchment folks and all kinds of different it was kind of like a Earth Day event. And so that's how I was able to meet the people I needed to in the industry to get my project going. And then I joined the board in 2014 worked with leaders in around I was on thought leadership, so put together a lot of thought leadership things around our conferences, which I want to talk a little bit more about.
• 11:42
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: But webinars. We have luncheons for legislative policy topics.
• 11:47
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: And when Tria was established in 1985 it was really to garner and get renewables going at a legislative level, and we had Mike Osborne and Russell Smith and a group of entrepreneurial folks that went to DC and inserted themselves in the conversation and got some things across the finish line, and were able to really help back when, you know, back in the 70s when the PUC was established and the regulatory policies Act was written. And so that that history is so fascinating. But as the industry did grow, and those folks were very, very involved in the first solar projects and the first wind projects, and getting those over the line at the legislative level and for educational reasons, supporting the education around it. They the the wind and solar industries kind of started their own lobbying efforts. So we stepped away from any lobbying, and we just became a convener. So we still have lots of events. We have chapters now in Dallas and Houston that have their own leadership, and it's just been wonderful to to watch it grow, and watch how many connections and kind of successful collaborations have happened through the the partnerships that that clean text has with the industry and with other organizations. If, when, when conferences come to Texas, we will host a welcome reception, Welcome to Texas reception. And those have been really successful. And then we have our own conference, which was called Texas renewables. And holla when she was holla blues, which is former CEO of electric power engineers. She's now still very active, but doing creative things. She was big part of the Crez citing, and she was the president of Tria for for some time, and she renamed the conference grid next, because once the renewables were really going, you know how to, how to incorporate those into a modernized grid, was really what we wanted to focus on with our conferences. So grid Next, we have one in Dallas and one in Austin this year, and they're very, very technical conferences. And so we just have such a awesome group that work with the industry from all across the the renewables and oil and gas. So that collision has happened, we go to nape. I don't know if you know nape, but it's a big oil and gas conference in Houston, I think one of the biggest. And we have, we have a renewable section there now, which is just really unbelievable. So watching renewables grow up, and we have a lot of oil and gas overlap, lots of people getting into renewables from oil and gas, and lots of oil and gas groups that need renewables to support their their consumption.
• 15:00
  Tim Montague: A fun fact I learned speaking to you in the pre interview was that T bone Pickens, who's really famous, quote, unquote, in the wind industry, never actually developed wind projects. How is that possible that somebody can get away with that? I'm just, I'm kind of almost,
• 15:19
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: he did develop, I think he did develop a couple renewable projects, big ones, and, you know, purchase the land, and he maybe, I think he had had some studies funded.
• 15:30
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: But what he just didn't, they didn't get built, I see, yeah, but, but Texas Monthly picked him up. And obviously he's a very charismatic, big, big energy guy. So I think he just get, got a lot of fanfare around those, those developments. But that. They didn't get end up getting built, yeah.
• 15:54
  Tim Montague: So you got into solar in about 2015 as I understand, is that right? Yes.
• 15:58
  Tim Montague: And so you've been in in solar for a decade. Paint us a picture, you know, as I mentioned there's, you know, 10 plus gigawatts of solar coming into Texas, but that's mostly utility scale solar. What's going on with distributed generation? And you commented that, you know, oil and gas also needs renewables. I'm curious what comes to mind for you about that, sure?
• 16:34
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Well, the oil and gas sector, they they use a lot of power for what they do, and their projects are kind of fast, and they have really well funded developments most of the time. So if they want, if they need power, they get power. So there, there's a lot of kind of smaller transmission lines that are built in West Texas, I think, to to get power to the next well that's that's being built out for for oil and gas. But there's generally a lack of of enough power in West Texas because it is so remote. We have a couple customers that are at the end of co op lines, and they'll lose power just because the oil and gas load is so high on at different times. So folks like that really, if there's a solution for them, if there's a microgrid solution, or if there's a solar solution or storage, they want that investment for the peace of mind that their power is not going to be, you know, they're not going to have any, any lack of of power anytime for a weather event or or load from other places. So when, when it came out that our load growth was going to be so so high for the first time in 50 years. Really, lot of people have had a lot of concern about, hey, I was already intermittent at some times because of my location or because of weather. So I think people are really looking at how they can be more energy independent themselves with their operations, especially oil and gas, or farming and and ranching and in rural communities. And then the AI, of course, is, is the the next level of of load that is, mean, AI, data centers. Yeah, the data centers. You know, there's a new one announced every day, just here in Texas, and I know they're, they're already in other places, but it's interesting because the announcements always include renewables as part of the solution. And I really think water is going to be a big part of of the the issues and planning. I just, I wish we had a little bit more planning time around these centers, because I think we're really going to need to plan it from a grid perspective. But just that much load our grids just aged. We need to modernize the grid.
• 19:58
  Tim Montague: So true, it's, it's kind of ironic, right?
• 20:01
  Tim Montague: Because these these grid operators are regulated monopolies for the most part, whether they're public power or private power. And you know, they have a responsibility to society to deliver, you know, 99.999% uptime, and they do generally do a pretty good job of that, with some notable exceptions now, like Storm Yuri, which was a major black eye, but, but they're not keeping up with the times, and that structure allows them to really resist change in some ways that are, I think, quite negative as as we energy professionals recognize that the grid is not keeping up, things have changed.
• 20:49
  Tim Montague: There is this thing called solar, wind and batteries, and it's actually really good for the grid operators. You can build it in a timely manner. You can build it cheaply and get it on the grid, which is a huge thing now, right? Because we have this load growth. You mentioned AI data centers.
• 21:06
  Tim Montague: There's a massive project in West Texas. I read about that Crusoe is developing. It's a gigawatt plus scale. It involves solar batteries and natural gas generators. And there's, there's a reason why these developers are using solar, wind and batteries. It's all about money.
• 21:24
  Tim Montague: Money drives everything, really, in the real world, in the built environment. And I you know many of us in renewables also care about decarbonizing the economy and creating a healthier, safer future. For humanity, and that's a wonderful mission, and I'm fully on board with that mission, but it is money that makes the world go round. So to that effect, I guess Reina, you know, when it comes to DG, and you, you know, you are involved in some agrivoltaics projects, which I just love, because it's good for farmers. It's good for solar developers. It gives rural communities an additional source of revenue. But how did you get interested in agrivoltaics and and what's going on there in Texas and New Mexico?
• 22:24
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Well, it's just kind of goes back to my, you know, family farming and ranching. But I got my master's from Texas Tech in energy in 2022 and I did my thesis on agrivoltaics. And at that time, I mean, it was all about how you pronounce it. And now I feel like I know it's just kind of my algorithm, but I feel like it's so incredibly popular now and all over. So I love that it's been great to watch it grow and be defined. And working with American Farmland Trust on educating farmers and agrivoltaics, which I really, really like. But when I got into utility scale solar development, you just the scale of the literally utility scale, just the how many acres that we're covering with glass is incredible for these big 100 and my last project was 300 megawatts. So it's, you know, it's a substantial piece of property, and to take that completely out of Ag, isn't always a great idea. And I shared with you before, but one of the consequences of these big projects that nobody really was prepared for was just the amount of the cost associated with dealing with the weeds or whatever was growing underneath the panel. So I feel like the industry's really done a great job at learning quickly from that and doing, you know, implementing sheep under panels, solar sheep, which I love, and then now pollinators. What what naturally? What natural grasses?
• 24:12
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: What's what grows? What's best for the soil, what stabilizes the soil best? So that research is ongoing, and we work with University of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley with we're doing 10 project we're installing 10 agrivoltague projects for them, and they're small, they're not large, but the data from those projects will help finance bigger installations for for agrivoltague projects, that's actually farming and growing crops under panels, which is a little different than the solar sheep as agrivoltagues, but they're, you know, it's happening in Texas and hat. We just have so much land here. I mean, it's happened, you know, it's taken place in Europe and New England, because the land constraints are so, so much more there so much more of a variable. But here we have so much land, and so I think to the extent we can really incorporate soil scientists and what is best for the community, the environment, the landowners, the rural the rural folks, is going to really help these projects to to be better in wherever they are as as the developments go forward. So I'm really optimistic about about agrivoltagues for the world.
• 25:38
  Tim Montague: The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by CPS America, maker of North America's number one three phase string inverter with over 10 gigawatts shipped in the US. The CPS product lineup includes string inverters ranging from 25 kW to 350 kW, their flagship inverter, the CPS 350 KW is designed to work with solar plants ranging from two megawatts to two gigawatts. CPS is the world's most bankable inverter brand, and is America's number one choice for solar plants, now offering solutions for commercial utility ESS and balance of system requirements go to Chintpowersystems.com or call 855584, 855-584-7168, to find out more, I'm fresh off the heels of year three of the solar farm Summit, which is a dedicated agrivoltaics conference in Chicago, and one of the emerging phenomena at the conference this year was. Was cattle voltaics. So grazing cattle on solar farms, it's becoming a thing. There's some nice trial projects, and the technology is really there. I had an interview with solar geek, which is an Israeli tracker company which really has this dialed in. But, you know, the thing that I mean, there are many angles to agrivoltague that I love, but the one that I love the most is that this is a carrot for rural communities that, in many places, are pushing back against wind and solar development for a variety of reasons, some of them well informed. Some of them not so well informed. The well informed pushback is a phenomenon that results when there's a concentration of development in a certain jurisdiction. And you can imagine this is a nuance that I think a lot of people don't recognize. Infrastructure is not spread evenly across the landscape, right? The power lines, the substations, the trends, the the tnd, the transmission and distribution lines run in specific jurisdictions and in specific areas and and the development of solar and wind occurs closer to that infrastructure. And so you can get these clusters. And sometimes that can seem like a barrage to local rural communities, and then they go, hey guys, okay, we're done. And then there are nefarious campaigns to miseducate people about the negatives. But you know, when you really get under the covers of rural wind and solar, it's really good for the local economy. And agrivoltaics, as I started to say, is a carrot for these communities where you can say, Look, you don't have to stop grazing or raising crops on the land. It's a both and, and now you can have an additional source of income, whether that's a lease payment or electricity for your farm operation. It's a both and, right? I'm just doing a story in PB magazine on vertical racking by facial vertical racking. It's, it's an awesome innovation that is hardly, uh, established here in the US, but certainly a thing in Europe.
• 29:13
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: I think we're gonna see a lot of that in the agrivoltague space, is kind of these almost greenhouse type structures that that become kind of more open air. So I think we're going to see that, and we need it. Energy security and food security are hand in hand, so I agree. You know, there is a there has been quite a bit of pushback in Texas and around the country for utility scale projects. And like you said, it's a carrot, but it's also a solution, and that's where education comes in, too and responsible development. So we're losing and that's why I like working with, you know, The Nature Conservancy of American Farmland Trust, because they really can, can help with educating and doing analysis of how much farmland were we using?
• 30:04
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Were we losing anyway? A lot. We were already losing farmland for all these different reasons.
• 30:12
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Urban sprawl being the big dog, right? Well, and generational, uh, family farming just, you know, isn't, isn't sustainable.
• 30:21
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Um, I'm not doing it, and it's just it's hard to do. So that's some. We have some real great success stories here in Texas of solar projects that are doing agrivoltaics, and their kids are in college, and their kids are doing the solar sheep thing, and so they know about energy, and in all the different possible career paths associated with farming and energy farming. So I love that. I think we'll see it more. But I always come from the opposite viewpoint, which is I developed tons of wind in the panhandle, and every single landowner that we worked with was just so appreciative, because farmers and ranchers need every single source of income that they can get an added value, because we experience extreme droughts, and that's going to continue and potentially get worse with with Climate change. So So I always worked with these ultra appreciative landowners, because, hey, you want to, you want to pay me for the wind?
• 31:30
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: That's amazing. And wind is different. Of course, you can farm around it and and ranch around it, which is great. But then also, you know, the school gym. Um, got, you know, there's a new school, complete facility from from the tax benefits of it, and so it's so neat in rural areas like that. And then when you come into different parts of Texas, it's just, it's every different areas very unique, and we just need to be responsible and have have development that that is responsible and make sense, and really put more time and effort into the pre development work for the land, to see what grows best and what works best and and let's maximize. Let's make it not dual use. But you know, let's do pollinators around the edges.
• 32:23
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: And again, that's farmers and ranchers are that's what they know how to do. They know what grows. They know how it grows.
• 32:29
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: They know when it grows. So we have to have them more involved in development and on their property. So I think the opportunities are great there.
• 32:41
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: And we need the food. We need more. We need to grow more food than we than we do.
• 32:44
  Tim Montague: So, yeah, what I love is this food, energy, water nexus of agrivoltagues, also which Helga birnath at at Sun is is fond of promoting it's water is super precious and rare in some parts of the country, like the southwest, right? If you go to West Texas, it's super arid, and so you have to be very careful with your water resources. Same with Southeast New Mexico. As I said to you in the pre interview, I grew up in Albuquerque, but I really haven't considered moving back to New Mexico because I'm concerned about the future of water in the state of New Mexico. It's, it's kind of scary, but, but anyway, here I
• 33:32
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: am. For me, that's one of the main benefits, side benefits of agrivoltaics Is it really does help prevent evaporation, as much evaporation, and when you get to cattle voltaics and and agrivoltaics, it's the shade. I mean, the extreme. Yeah, you can harvest the resource of the sun, but the animals really need shade, and this is a great solution for that. So I love to see, you know, I looked at the lasso project, the large animal solar. It was a grant that was out there, and so worked on a couple of different potential projects for that grant. And it's, it's stalled out now, but I think we're going to see it and it makes sense. And then, and then the the wind agrovoltaic solution, the the wind solution, that's kind of, you know, where you can have cattle and horses around panels.
• 34:23
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: You could do that with solar, which would really solve a lot of problems, including energy cost.
• 34:33
  Tim Montague: Yes, and that is another irony of the State of the State is the the obbb, the big, beautiful bill is causing drastic inflation in energy prices at a time when there's rapid growth in grid demand, right from Ai, from electrification of transportation. And, you know, I saw an estimate from envers that only 30% of solar projects might survive the cliff that the OB BB is going to cause, starting in 2028 it's kind of happy days.
• 35:09
  Tim Montague: There's going to be a boom.
• 35:13
  Tim Montague: We're going to go to maybe 60 gigawatts in 2026 of solar in the US. And then if thing, if something, you know, if there's not a stepping back from the obbb, there is going to be a cliff, so, but let's talk about Tria. There's a 40th anniversary coming up for the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance, and which is now it's safe to say it is just clean techs, right?
• 35:45
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Yeah, and what happened with with Tria and all the kind of artifacts from all the hard work that Tria did, and it did pass on into clean techs, but they created the Texas Historical renewable Foundation, and so they're digitizing all the original newsletters and all the conferences and all the speeches. So we're going to really highlight that going forward during this event and and we're going to have, we're going to do some fundraising stuff for for that organization.
• 36:22
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: And, like I said, the stories are just so rich, and history so so interesting, and people I just, I don't know that, that most people are aware of it. So hoping to bring a lot of awareness to to, you know, the foundation that was set that we're building renewable. On now.
• 36:43
  Tim Montague: So that event, 40th anniversary luncheon is September 23 2025 at the central Austin library in Austin, Texas.
• 36:53
  Tim Montague: So check that out, and it's just clean text. Dot O, R, G, so yeah, please check that out.
• 37:00
  Tim Montague: Clean text.org, and that's amazing that there is a 40th anniversary of this organization happening.
• 37:10
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Who knew? Yeah, and Austin energies are one of our, our partners in that, and they're celebrating the 20th anniversary of their solar program. And Austin Energy has been great with helping, you know, buy renewables. They bought power from one of the first wind projects in West Texas, and so they'll be there.
• 37:29
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: And, you know, we work with a lot of we work with CPS, and a lot of the different utilities and providers around the state.
• 37:38
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Work with ERCOT on education around renewables, so it's really great.
• 37:46
  Tim Montague: Speaking of ERCOT, I'm going to put the ERCOT dashboard on screen, which I did not know existed, but this is a lovely dashboard of real time energy generation by source and a monthly capacity. Look back, and I'm just going to read out for our audio listeners what's going on here. I'm going to, I'm going to read the monthly capacity figure. So it just goes, not in order of size, but it's just ordered, okay, solar, 31.9 gigawatts. Wind, 39.9 gigawatts. Hydro, 573 megawatts storage, 13.9 gigawatts. Other 152 megawatts natural gas. This is the big dog, 66.2 gigawatt gigawatts. Coal and lignite, 13.8 gigawatts. And nuclear, 5.2 gigawatts. So you see that solar and wind together are 70 gigawatts. They exceed natural gas in the fossil state, which is just amazing. But what are your thoughts about what's going on in ERCOT and you're developing something called the Texas 10s? I would love to hear a little bit about that. Bit about that
• 39:06
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: market, sure. I mean, battery storage is really was the missing piece, and it was. We've really tried to incorporate batteries into our projects for for a long time. Now we just financially.
• 39:18
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: It didn't make sense, and now it does. It really makes solar and wind make a lot of sense. But when I look at those numbers from ERCOT and like, like we talked about the ERCOT dashboards, really great, and it's just very you can get a little energy education just browsing through there. They do a great job. But I think my reaction to it's different than most people, because when I looked at that today, the first thing I thought about was 100 of us testifying at the Capitol during the legislative session to fight anti renewable bills.
• 39:58
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: That's why we had to do that.
• 40:03
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Because solar and wind are a real player. You know, before it was kind of just like, oh, this is the Earth Day, you know, tree hugger thing, green energy. And now, I mean, we're, we're, we're a real player. So, um, you know we, we had, I'm sure you heard about it, but we had significant, very harmful anti renewable legislation proposed, yes, and it got shot down. It got shot down, but there was a huge collaboration between all the industries, all the industry organizations. You know, we, lots of times, we stay in our little groups, and we don't really, you know, play well with with each other. Just don't have a reason to we have our own conferences. We have our own dues and memberships. And this is the first time that I've seen every you know, sia showed up in Texas and really supported things. Cleantex, powerhouse Texas was a very great convener of people. And you know, Jeff Clark's organization, Advanced Power Alliance. We had farmers and ranchers come from all over the state. We had just every single part of the industry come and sign up and say, Hey, this is, you know, this directly impacts what we've done, what we want to do, the environment we had the Nature Conservancy. We had Texas, you know, environment Tech. Texas. It was just it was so amazing to be part of it, the Texas Solar Energy Society, who I serve, on their board, and they were there, and they've been there since before Tria. So I mean, having the legacy people that have seen all this, this was something that has never happened before. And we, we, you know, we packed out this hearing room, and we were there at 715 people were testifying at we're there at 7:15am people were
• 42:13
  testifying at 7: 15pm but it was so it was so heartwarming for me to just see everyone come together and say, Hey, this is our industry. This is good for Texans. This is good for farmers and ranchers. Is good for communities. This is so it was, it was just really amazing to see. So when I look at that, I that's the first thing I think about is, hey, we're a real threat to other generation right now. But, I mean, we're not trying to be a threat. We always say it's all of the above approach. You know, we're part of the mix.
• 42:48
  Tim Montague: So, so anyway, so what is your advice in our last few minutes together for developers and EPCs working in Texas or Southeast New Mexico, where you're integrating projects into this rural landscape of farming and ranching and oil development oil and gas. What advice do you have for developers to be more successful?
• 43:18
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: Well, I think just working with local leadership is really important, especially with with the battery storage development, you just have to incorporate the, you know, the the local decision makers, the fire departments, the you know, we always go into these communities and and and do zoning changes or and it's always an education process, and they always want more, you know, there's always somebody serving on the board, is always also a teacher, of course, and or a principal, and they say, Hey, we want, we want renewable education for our schools, for our science room. So I'm hoping, you know, I think developers can, can add a lot of value there. You know, they can, they can do presentations, and they can do tours, and they can do scholarships. So I think the more of that we see, the the more well received these projects will be in the community.
• 44:20
  Tim Montague: Hey, guys, are you a residential solar installer doing light commercial but wanting to scale into large CNI solar. I'm Tim Montague. I've developed over 150 megawatts of commercial solar, and I've solved the problem that you're having you don't know what tools and technologies you need in order to successfully close 100 KW to megawatt scale projects.
• 44:44
  Tim Montague: I've developed a commercial solar accelerator to help installers exactly like you.
• 44:48
  Tim Montague: Just go to cleanpowerhour.com click on strategy and book a call today. It's totally free with no obligation. Thanks for being a listener. I really appreciate you listening to the pod, and I'm Tim Montague, let's grow solar and storage. Go to clean power hour and click strategy today. Thanks so much.
• 45:08
  Tim Montague: I hope this isn't the last time we see you on the Clean Power Hour. I've really enjoyed this.
• 45:17
  Tim Montague: Check out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please give us a rating and a review on Apple or Spotify. Give us a thumbs up on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel, reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love hearing from my listeners. I look forward to seeing you all in Vegas for re plus in September, and with that Raina Hornaday, how can our listeners find you?
• 45:43
  Raina Tillman Hornaday: LinkedIn is probably the best way. So I'm on LinkedIn and online, and thank you so much for having me.
• 45:49
  Tim Montague: Thank you. Raina Hornaday, founder and CEO of Caprock renewables. I'm Tim Montague. Let's grow solar and storage.