{"id":37871,"date":"2014-07-15T09:32:46","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T14:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=37871"},"modified":"2014-07-15T09:32:46","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T14:32:46","slug":"as-solar-grows-in-texas-border-city-provides-a-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/07\/15\/as-solar-grows-in-texas-border-city-provides-a-model\/","title":{"rendered":"As Solar Grows in Texas, Border City Provides a Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Marfa Public Radio:<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n
\"Presidio<\/a>

Travis Bubenik\/KRTS<\/p>

Presidio Economic Development Director Brad Newton says the city could partner economically with Mexico by selling supplies for oil and gas exploration taking place across the border.<\/p><\/div>\n

For most of its life, the small border city of Presidio, Texas has been on the edge of the electric grid.<\/p>\n

This rugged part of West Texas has seen a major upgrade of its transmission lines over the past five\u00a0years, but Presidio\u2019s Economic Development Director Brad Newton says before that, it was pretty much the Wild West of the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were working off the old wooden poles that were put about the same time they were filming Giant,\u201d he says, \u201cand electrical outages were very common in Presidio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

As part of our look at solar power in Texas this week, we went to see how after those new lines were put in, the city turned to the sun to make what used to be regular blackouts and power surges a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

\"Edgar<\/a>

Travis Bubenik\/KRTS<\/p>

Edgar Briones works alone at the Acacia Solar Plant. He says many people in Presidio and Ojinaga still don\u2019t know the plant exists.<\/p><\/div>\n

Edgar Briones works alone\u00a0at the Acacia Solar Plant. It\u2019s just him and about 42-thousand solar panels, and a constant, high-pitched humming in the background \u2013 the sound of the sun\u2019s rays being converted into power and sent to the grid.<\/p>\n

The panels follow the path of the sun throughout the day, adjusting every 15 minutes or so to get the most direct sunlight possible.<\/p>\n

The power the plant churns out is actually sold to the City of Bryan, but Presidio still reaps the benefit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re putting out more power from this plant alone than the entire city uses daily,\u201d says Newton.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0says the power used to drop out even with small, far-away thunderstorms, but ever since the plant came online a year ago, the lights here stay on even when they\u2019re out across the region.<\/p>\n

When we covered the ice storm that hit last fall, people in Marfa, Fort Davis and other towns were shivering in the cold without power for days, but the heaters in Presidio stayed on.<\/p>\n

The plant sits down a dirt road outside of town, surrounded by the vastness of the Big Bend landscape, so it\u2019s hard to even know it\u2019s here. Briones says a lot of people still don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

He says sometimes when he crosses the border from his home in Ojinaga, Chihuahua into Presidio, customs officers ask him where he works. When he says the solar plant, they ask him where it\u2019s at.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they don\u2019t even know it\u2019s here, and they actually work and live here in Presidio,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Travis Bubenik\/KRTS<\/p>

The Acacia Solar Plant in Presidio, TX has been online for just a year, but it's re-vamped the city's power infrastructure.<\/p><\/div>\n

But Presidio\u2019s actually been in the solar game for a few years now. The city\u2019s wastewater flows through a solar-powered treatment plant, and the local schools have panels of their own.<\/p>\n

The Austin-based Pecan Street Research Institute studies small-scale renewable energy technologies, and how families use energy use on an everyday basis.<\/p>\n

Brewster McCracken, Pecan Street\u2019s CEO, says just a year ago, solar looked sluggish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you would\u2019ve asked me a year ago what\u2019s happening with solar, I would\u2019ve said it\u2019s on a best-case scenario a real slow glide up,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that is clearly not happening anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The looming solar boom in West Texas is proof of that.<\/p>\n

Companies from California to France say the market\u2019s just now getting strong enough where they can turn a profit in Texas. Three utility-scale plants are in the works right now, and one\u2019s already being built near Fort Stockton \u2013 but it\u2019s not like this is all some utopian green dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, the natural gas to me I think would be a good thing for the city,\u201d says Presidio Mayor John Ferguson.<\/p>\n

Ferguon\u2019s opposed to oil and gas drilling anywhere in the Big Bend, but he does see the need for a diverse energy mix, so he\u2019s all for using gas that\u2019s pumped in from somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Right now the city doesn\u2019t have access to natural gas, but Ferguson says if it did, it\u00a0could bring in manufacturing and jobs. There\u2019s a sizable chile plant based just south of the border that wants to move across into Presidio, but it needs natural gas to cook the chiles.<\/p>\n

Newton also says drilling doesn\u2019t need to happen here, but he says the city\u2019s watching the industry in Mexico for opportunity. Government-owned PEMEX is exploring for oil and gas just an hour south of the border, and Newton says Presidio could be an industry-friendly neighbor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would be a real good host for companies to come down and supply all the needs that they need to look for Oil and Gas in Mexico,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Mexico also recently announced plans for a natural gas pipeline that would stretch from Chihuahua through the border and up into to the booming Permian Basin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more things we can bring to Presidio, the more our friends can come over and trade with us,\u201d says Newton, \u201cand we\u2019ll smile all the way to the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Texas, solar is still the underdog when it comes to competing with oil and gas. State regulators still haven\u2019t called for a particular focus on developing solar \u2013 what\u2019s called a solar \u201cmandate\u201d \u2013 but the state still has some of the nation\u2019s highest potential for harvesting the sun\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

That means small-scale experiments like the ones in Presidio might become models for communities across Texas, and for companies from far and wide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Marfa Public Radio: For most of its life, the small border city of Presidio, Texas has been on the edge of the electric grid. This rugged part of West Texas has seen a major upgrade of its transmission lines over the past five\u00a0years, but Presidio\u2019s Economic Development Director Brad Newton says before that, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[14,21,32],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37871"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37881,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37871\/revisions\/37881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}