TAEBA Executive Director Matthew Boms Delivers Testimony on Distributed Energy Resources Before Texas House Committee on State Affairs

Alliance calls for modernizing distribution planning to unlock billions in consumer savings as Texas faces unprecedented load growth

AUSTIN, TX – Today, Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance (TAEBA) Executive Director Matthew Boms delivered testimony before the Texas House Committee on State Affairs during an interim hearing on Microgrids and distributed energy resources (DERs) in Texas. Boms urged Texas lawmakers to modernize the state’s distribution planning framework to take full advantage of rapidly evolving distributed energy technologies.

Boms made clear that while Texas’s landmark 2002 electricity deregulation delivered enormous benefits to consumers through competition and private investment, Texas’ current distribution and transmission planning was developed before distributed batteries, rooftop solar, virtual power plants, and smart electric vehicle charging existed at meaningful scale. The costs of that outdated assumption, Boms said, are ultimately borne by Texas ratepayers.

“Our regulatory framework still largely assumes the only answer to load growth is traditional utility capital investment,” and that matters because Texans ultimately pay for those investments through their electric bills,” Boms told the committee. “Today, there is very little transparent price discovery at the distribution level. Competitive providers often cannot see where distribution constraints exist, what capacity is available, or where distributed resources could provide the most value to the grid. As a result, many cost-saving opportunities never reach the market.”

A TAEBA-commissioned study released in January found that improved DER integration could reduce transmission and distribution costs by roughly $1.15 billion annually, totaling more than $8 billion over a decade. Broader consumer savings from that integration were estimated at nearly $19 billion over 10 years.

Boms acknowledged the scale of infrastructure challenges ahead, noting that Texas is entering a period of extraordinary load growth driven by data centers, industrial expansion, and population growth. He stressed, however, that new infrastructure alone is insufficient: Texas should require utilities to evaluate all viable solutions when a grid need is identified, including local reliability resources like distributed batteries, demand response, microgrids, and virtual power plants.

“When utilities identify a transmission or distribution need, they should be required to evaluate all viable solutions – including local reliability resources like distributed batteries, demand response, microgrids, and virtual power plants – and select the option that delivers reliability at the lowest reasonable cost,” Boms concluded. “That is not anti-utility. It is pro-consumer, pro-competition, and consistent with the free-market principles that made Texas a national energy leader in the first place.”