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Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy Impact in the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP)
Abstract
This report is a summary of the renewable energy projects installed throughout Texas
after the year 2000. The collection of these projects was done in response to the Energy
System Laboratory’s requirement to fulfill its obligations for Senate Bill 5 (SB5). The
renewable energy projects researched and presented herein include: solar photovoltaic,
solar thermal, hydroelectric, geothermal, and landfill gas-fired power plants. However,
information on wind energy farms has been omitted in this report due to the fact that a
more complete ESL report on this subject has already been prepared, ESL-TR-06-08-01.
In addition to locating these projects, SB5 required the calculation of reduced NOx
emissions. To accomplish this, the Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) at Texas A&M
University developed “eCalc” in 2004 -- a web-based Emissions Reduction Calculator.
This program is able to calculate weather-normalized NOx emissions estimates for
energy efficiency and renewable sources projects, such as solar photovoltaic, solar
thermal, and wind.
Annual energy savings from renewable projects resulted in the following:
• Solar photovoltaic projects resulted in energy savings of 424.18 MWh/yr and a
reduction of 0.28 tons of NOx/year.
• Solar thermal projects resulted in energy savings of 332.88 MWh/yr and a
reduction of 0.26 tons of NOx/year.
The peak ozone season day (OSD) NOx reductions were calculated to be:
• Solar photovoltaic projects resulted in savings of 1.29 MWh/day.
• Solar thermal projects resulted in savings equivalent to 0.94 MWh/day.
The emissions reduction values for hydroelectric and geothermal projects are not
presented here since there is no methodology in place at this time to obtain these values.
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Citation
Baltazar-Cervantes, J. C.; Haberl, J. S.; Ramirez, E. J.; Champeau, K. (2007). Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy Impact in the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP). Energy Systems Laboratory, Texas A&M University System. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /6354.