People in the solar industry like to say that Texas is second only to California in its potential for solar power – particularly West Texas, with its abundant sunshine.

But Texas has, nonetheless, done little to encourage the spread of solar – it has no statewide net metering policy, which requires utilities to buy the excess electricity produced by small residential and commercial solar systems. In states like California, net metering has encouraged the widespread adoption of solar energy and helped avoid electricity shortages and price spikes during periods of peak demand on hot summer days.

Houston Chronicle

There’s a good chance flipping on the light switch 10 years from now will feel just as ordinary as it did for your parents and grandparents.

But behind the scenes, a radically different system for sending electrons where they’re needed will be turning on those lights. Electrical power that today comes from massive centralized generation stations could originate from your neighbors’ solar panels, then wait a few hours in a mammoth battery in your garage until you get home.

That’s because the biggest change to our power grid since it was first built more than a century ago has begun. And this time we’re all sharing the control once held by the companies that generate power and ones that distribute it.

CNET

Renewable energy is indeed the future, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s latest report, which forecasts technologies such as wind and solar to “dominate” the future of electricity by 2040, making up 48% of the world’s installed capacity and 34% of electricity generation.

Energy Infra Post