First Texas Energy Fund supported plant comes online

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – The first Texas Energy Fund supported power plant has come online, one month ahead of schedule and less than three years after voters overwhelmingly voted to expand natural gas production.

The Timmerman Power Plant near Maxwell in Caldwell County is now fully online and “available to provide about 380 megawatts of dispatchable generation to the Texas power grid,” the Lower Colorado River Authority announced. “When operating at full capacity, the plant will be able to supply enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes.” 

“As more people and businesses move to Texas, the state needs more dispatchable power that can be available quickly during times of peak demand,” the LCRA said. “The natural gas-fueled Timmerman Power Plant is a peaker plant that can ramp up and shut down in minutes, providing power when it is needed the most.”

The LCRA produces and delivers electric power to residents in several counties in Central Texas, manages the Highland Lakes and lower Colorado River, including operating six hydroelectric dams. Its area of responsibility covers 600 miles of the river to supply water for more than one million people. 

The Timmerman Power Plant, a natural gas peaker plant, is the first Texas Energy Fund-supported project to come fully online. In April 2024, it broke ground and by last August the first unit was operational. 

"Texas is rapidly adding power to the state grid," Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. "LCRA's investments in generation through the Texas Energy Fund will help ensure reliability for all Texans as we fortify the state’s ability to power homes.”

In 2021, the legislature advanced measures to expand reliable dispatchable power generation prioritizing natural gas to strengthen the grid. Natural gas is among the cleanest and most energy efficient sources of energy and is abundant in Texas. Natural gas has proven to reliably produce energy and meet peak demands compared to intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. Solar only produces power when the sun shines and wind when the wind blows and turbines aren’t frozen. Neither produce storable energy.

In 2023, the legislature created a $5 billion Texas Energy Fund (TxEF) loan program and voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to expand “the construction, maintenance, modernization, and operation of electric generating facilities,” The Center Square reported.  

The rollout of the TxEF was so successful that the legislature increased funding for it. Last year, it appropriated $5 billion to fund the TxEF for fiscal years 2025-2026 and an additional $4 billion for fiscal years 2027-2028, The Center Square reported.

As of Wednesday, the PUC says it has allocated $2.65 billion for loans to support 3,564 megawatts of new, reliable power generation for the Texas grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Eight applications are currently under review for TxEF loans for another 4,841 MW of power, it says. 

So far 29 projects have been selected to strengthen electric reliability and resiliency and facility weatherization for nearly 919,000 Texas customers served by grids outside the ERCOT region, the PUC says. These areas are in the El Paso region in far west Texas, north and west sections of the panhandle and in northeast and deep east Texas.

Two projects, an NRG Energy plant in Houston and a Calpine plant in the Dallas area, are  expected to come online this summer. Both received TxEF approvals last year, The Center Square reported. 

The plants providing more electricity come as ERCOT has expressed concerns about unsustainable demands for power and water by roughly 140 proposed data centers in Texas. 

County judges have also been sounding the alarm about water shortages, data centers and energy supply. 

Abbott has encouraged counties and local water boards to apply for $1 billion worth of water fund grants to address some of their issues. 

The grant application deadline is July 30. Webinars are also being hosted Thursday, April 23 and Wednesday, May 13.