Texas lawmaker floats starting school year later to reduce ‘wasteful stress’ on power grid

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Texas lawmaker said he may introduce legislation next year aimed at pushing back the start of the school year as a way to reduce “awfully wasteful stress on our power grid,” according to a social media post this weekend.

State Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, wrote on his X account , “With 1,100 new residents daily and an ever-expanding economy, opening schools before Labor Day is an awfully wasteful stress on our power grid. Cooling thousands of buildings – often the largest buildings in a community – during the hottest months of the year makes no sense. Schools should be completely closed during July & August, saving taxpayer dollars on cooling expenses and our grid at the same time.”

August is typically the hottest time of the year in Central Texas, and attempting to stay cool in the persistent triple-digit heat last week led to Texans using a record amount of electricity. ERCOT, the state’s power grid operator, reported the highest demand ever of 85,559 megawatts on Tuesday. That surpassed the previous record set last year on Aug. 10 when demand was at 85,508 megawatts.

Patterson concluded his post with the hashtag #billideas, suggesting this may be a policy proposal he intends to pursue when the legislature reconvenes for another regular session in January. Patterson was unavailable for an interview Monday to explain more about his idea, but Doug Lewin, the author of the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, said he agreed with some of Patterson’s argument

“As a parent of four children in Austin Independent School District, I would love for school to start after Labor Day. That would be great,” Lewin said Monday. “There’s a lot of reasons to maybe push the school year back. I don’t think the energy grid is on the list.”

What he said he’d rather see Texas do is incentivize schools to have solar panels and battery storage on campuses. That way, he said, they could collect energy during the sunniest parts of the school day, which would then be available if or when grid conditions get tight.

“I’m in favor of energy abundance,” Lewin said. “I think most Texans are in favor of that, and we have it with the right policies, particularly to support solar and storage and energy efficiency.”

On Monday the Austin Independent School District announced it received a $15 million grant from the Biden administration to pay for rooftop solar panels at “14 campuses in historically underserved communities,” according to a news release. The district already has solar panels at 14 of its facilities, which produce two megawatts of energy — enough to power about 230 homes in Austin. This new grant, the district added, could help make an additional five megawatts available from the solar panels that will be installed in the future.

Perhaps it’s too early to determine whether what Patterson posted on social media is something that would gain traction and support from other Texas lawmakers.

Education issues are likely to dominate next year’s session, as lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives already held a hearing earlier this month to discuss how to craft legislation providing subsidies to families for their children’s private and home schooling expenses . The public education committee heard how other states are implementing education savings account programs, which is what Gov. Greg Abbott would like lawmakers to finally approve after meeting continuous pushback during last year’s session.

The 89th regular legislative session begins on Jan. 14 and will last for 140 days.

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