Alternative Energy in the Houston Region
Houston has the tools and infrastructure in place to capitalize on this emerging sector of the energy industry.
Industry Facts
- The City of Houston is the fourth largest purchaser of green power in the nation, according to the EPA, behind Intel, Kohl's and Whole Foods (2010).
- The EPA's Green Power Partnership has hailed the City of Houston as the No. 1 municipal purchaser of green power in the nation and as a crucial leader in the alternative energy trend.
- Texas is one of the top three states in the country in wind power potential.
- In 2003, Texas installed more wind power than the entire United States had in any other year.
- According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Houston has the third highest number in the country of energy-efficient commercial buildings.
Wind
- 32 percent of the City of Houston's total electricity load is purchased from wind energy.
- Texas is the top producer of wind energy according to the American Wind EnergyAssociation’s Second-Quarter Market Report.
- Texas’ cumulative wind power capacity total now stands at 2,370 megawatts – enough to power more than 600,000 average American homes.
- Texas has leased to Galveston Offshore Wind an 11,000-acre region of the Gulf of Mexico, seven miles off Galveston Island, for gigantic wind turbines that could eventually power 40,000 homes and generate millions of dollars for state schools. The project marks a new era of pollution-free energy production for the Gulf.
Biodiesel
- Houston Biodiesel educates about and promotes the use of clean, renewable, domestically produced biodiesel in all diesel engines. The company also sells high quality biodiesel that conforms to ASTM specifications and invites consumers to make their own biodiesel in their "BIG" batch reactor.
- TexCom, Inc. is building and will operate a new 30-million-gallon-per-year biodiesel plant at the LBC Houston LP bulk liquids terminal in Seabrook, Texas. TexCom plans to construct the multi-million dollar plant that will convert virgin soybean oil into biodiesel and utilize existing on-site storage capacity and other terminal facilities under a long-term lease from LBC.
Hybrid Technology
- Mayor Bill White announced in April 2005 plans to convert a substantial portion of the City’s fleet of cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles to hybrids by the year 2010.
- The City fleet comprises more than 11,000 vehicles of which 3,554 are the civilian, light-duty, “non-specialty” fleet.
Ethanol
- Houston’s first ethanol (E85) fuel dispensing facility opened in October 2004 at NASA's Johnson Space Center. JSC is now the fifth NASA center to add ethanol fueling capability. JSC employees are now mandated to use E85 in the 25 Flexible Fuel Vehicles in the GSA fleet assigned for employee use, if their official business takes them within a 50-mile radius of JSC.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
- The Woodlands-based Center for Fuel Cell Research and Applications is a multisponsor research consortium working to advance hydrogen and fuel cell technologies from lab to market. The Center offers two programs - one providing surveillance of early-stage technologies and the other providing operational verification of products emerging from late-stage developers and manufacturers.
