West DFW News

Director of the Energy Alliance and energy expert Bill Peacock and state Sen. Bob Hall are scheduled to speak at a special meeting tonight on the widespread blackouts in Texas last week.

The meeting, hosted by Park County Conservatives, will be held on Friday, Feb. 26, a 6 p.m., the group announced. The meeting will take place at 129 S. Ranch House Road, Willow Park.

"Our goal is to learn what actually happened, what can be done to prevent it in the future and how we can help," the announcement stated.

Energy Alliance Policy Director Bill Peacock | linkedin.com/in/bill-peacock-1a12526

Peacock has spoken out about the widespread blackouts in Texas and told the Lone Star Standard that it was not only the weather to blame.

“Beyond the weather, environmental policies that have been pushing renewable energy across the country and in Texas for a long time are largely keeping the Texas grid from providing reliable power,” Peacock told the Lone Star Standard. 

“We could have a reliable natural gas backup in place but we don't. All three of those are related to the renewable energy policies in Texas and in the United States,” Peacock said. “We need to stop renewable energy subsidies, eliminate excessive regulation by the Texas Public Utility Commission and let the market work...then, we will have a system that we can rely upon.”

Peacock previously has questioned if California's rolling blackouts would occur in Texas. He has also repeatedly warned about the reliability issues caused by renewables, particularly in cases of extreme weather: 

"Truth be told, it is the 'innovation” of wind energy that is largely responsible for California’s blackouts. Since Texas is even more innovative when it comes to wind energy, today’s problems with California’s electric grid could be a glimpse into Texas’ future," Peacock wrote in a column for the Lone Star Standard last summer. 

"These interventions have led to significant distortions and reliability problems in Texas’ electric grid, along with fears of blackouts like California is facing today," Peacock wrote.

Peacock has written extensively about how renewable energy is not self-sustaining, but it is reliant on taxpayer subsidies. In another piece he wrote, an op-ed for the Lone Star Standard, he pointed out the billions in subsidies wind and solar farms have received.

"In 2019, wind and solar farms operating in Texas took in almost $6 billion subsidies and benefits from local, state and federal governments. All of that came out of the pockets of average everyday Americans—mostly Texans," Peacock wrote. "Texas is already closing in on California when it comes to high energy costs. And they are not too much farther behind when it comes to the reliability problems California has had that led to rolling blackouts this summer."