Dam’s power might not fuel a trend
Houston is oil and gas country, but the first hydroelectric power plant is coming to the region through Lake Livingston, even if it is unlikely to start a trend.
The East Texas Electric Cooperative broke ground Wednesday on a 24-megawatt plant that will be able to power about 12,000 houses. The co-op will pay more than $1 million annually to the city of Houston for the right to use city facilities at the lake.
The power plant at the Lake Livingston dam, which is just east of Huntsville, is scheduled for completion in 2018.
The plant is a rarity for Texas as a state with limited water resources able to feed new power plants. Most of the state’s hydroelectric plants were built
several decades ago along some of the state’s dams and reservoirs.
Still, less than 1 percent of Texas’ power comes from hydroelectricity, according to the power grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The vast majority of Texas’ power comes from natural gas and coal, although wind and nuclear power are key sources as well. Still for drinking
Because Lake Livingston is primarily used for drinking water, the cooperative is emphasizing that the plant is a “run-ofthe-water” model that does not affect existing water levels or flow, nor does it take away from the water designated for Houston drinking water or for industrial use. The plant generates power from water that already runs through the Trinity River and the lake, said the cooperative’s chief financial officer, Ryan Thomas, who also stressed that fishing and recreation will not curbed.
“We will be getting greener when this project is complete. It’s been a long time coming,” Thomas said, as the project has been on the drawing board for more than a dozen years. Various agreements permits were needed to make it a reality, including approval from the Houston City Council in 2013.
“As a run-of-the-river project, it means we’re basically the low man on the totem pole,” Thomas said.
When water flow is plentiful, more power will be generated. When drought conditions are prevalent, the plant will produce less or no electricity.
Texas has more a dozen hydroelectric plants in use, several in the Austin region and Texas Hill Country as part of the Lower Colorado River Authority. Still, only about 2 percent of the authority’s overall power comes from its six hydroelectricity plants, according to the authority.
Thomas said officials probably should have built a hydroelectric plant at the Lake Livingston dam when the reservoir was created in the 1960s. ‘Good sites’
Hydroelectric plants are already at most of the “good sites” for them, said John Fainter, president and CEO of the Association of Electric Companies of Texas, and the effect of those plants is “very minimal” in the big picture.
“I can’t imagine there being a major movement toward hydropower in Texas with our water problems,” Fainter said. “It’s not really efficient relative to gas and other fuels.”
The cooperative declined on Wednesday to say how much the plant costs, although it was previously estimated at $100 million.
Hydroelectricity plants operate at capacity up to 65 percent of the time, compared with about 15 percent of the time for wind turbines, Thomas said. Essentially, hydroelectricity plants cost more upfront than other forms of alternative energy but operate more reliably in the long term, he added.
The plant is being built in cooperation with the Trinity River Authority of Texas, which owns and operates the dam and reservoir. The city of Houston paid for the existing facilities in the 1960s and owns 70 percent of Lake Livingston’s water storage, much of which is used for drinking water.
“It’s a good source of inexpensive power generation,” said Jim Sims, the Trinity River Authority’s southern region manager. “It’s a very green source of power generation.”
The cooperative will sell the power generated to its 10 nonprofit electric distribution cooperatives that combine to serve 46 East Texas counties — not including Harris County — north and east of Houston.