The Energy Capital podcast focuses on Texas energy and power grid issues, featuring interviews with energy professionals, academics, policymakers, and advocates. Produced by ClarityForge Studios.
ERCOT’s all-time demand record is 85.5 gigawatts. Yet by the end of last year, the grid manager’s interconnection queue included 432 gigawatts of generation requests. ERCOT also received 225 gigawatts-worth of new large load requests last year.
The critical factor connecting the two: transmission lines. But the transmission improvements that would accommodate such dramatic grid growth aren’t growing nearly as fast. In a conversation with Energy Capital Podcast host Micalah Spenrath, renewable energy veteran Raina Hornaday describes transmission as a planning and construction constraint that load growth is no longer willing to wait for.
Raina has developed more than a gigawatt of renewable energy across Texas over the past 20 years. She founded Caprock Renewables and Fortress Microgrid, overseeing the creation of both utility-scale and distributed generation resources.
In this episode, she describes a shift in how generation and load projects are being created: she calls it, “the energization of land.”
She and Micalah also discuss how transmission lead times are prompting distributed generation resources to grow quickly, even as utility-scale solar continues to boom, and how institutional knowledge is moving from utilities to private developers, reshaping project delivery.
Raina also credits battery storage resources added in the past five years for easing the price volatility that used to define ERCOT’s energy market. She says market adjustments made in the past five months have created a tailwind for storage projects.
And she and Micalah discuss Senate Bill 819, a measure filed in the last legislative session that would have imposed strict siting requirements on renewables projects and likely hobbled Texas’s nation-leading renewables industry. While the bill drew widespread opposition and ultimately died, Raina expects a similar proposal to be filed again in next year’s legislative session.
She says education — about the tax base that renewables create for rural communities, the revenue that renewable energy projects offer landowners, and the workforce they create across the state — is key, both for blocking anti-energy proposals and propelling the state’s economic and energy future.
Timestamps
* 00:00 – Introduction & Raina Hornaday
* 00:54 – Caprock Origins: Family, Wind, and the Met Tower
* 03:52 – Why South Texas for Utility-Scale Solar
* 05:36 – The Landowner Pitch and Family Legacy
* 09:06 – Boutique Developer in a Shifting Policy Landscape
* 13:00 – Education, Powerhouse Texas, and American Farmland Trust
* 16:14 – Agrivoltaics and Solar Sheep as a Growing Industry
* 17:29 – ERCOT Interconnection Bottlenecks
* 20:57 – SB 819, Tariffs, and Real-Time Co-Optimization
* 23:21 – Testimony, Schools, and the Workforce Pipeline
* 28:55 – Distributed Batteries and Storage Economics After Uri
* 32:18 – Why Battery Projects Get Canceled
* 34:22 – What Texas Needs Next: Flexibility and Distributed Generation
* 36:50 – Closing Thoughts
Resources
Guest & Org
* Raina Hornaday (LinkedIn)
* Caprock Renewables (Website – LinkedIn)
* CleanTX – Raina Hornaday Board Profile
Organizations Discussed
* ERCOT
* Public Utility Commission of Texas
* American Farmland Trust – Texas Smart Solar
* CleanTX
* Texas A&M AgriLife Extension
* Texas Tech University – Energy Commerce and Renewable Energy
Company & Industry News
* ERCOT’s large load queue jumped almost 300% last year – Utility Dive
* ERCOT Goes Live with Real-Time Co-optimization Plus Batteries
* ERCOT’s large load queue has nearly quadrupled in a single year – Latitude Media
* ERCOT Announces Strategic Organizational Changes to Support Grid Reliability
Books & Articles Discussed
* Texas Renewables Interactive Map – txrenewables.net
* Supporting Expansion of Agrivoltaics Using Smart Solar Principles – Southern SARE Grant
* Texas Senate Bill 819 – 89th Legislature
Related Posts by Texas Energy & Power
* It’s a Transition and an Expansion
* Flexibility Driving Reliability and Affordability with Matt Boms
Transcript
Micalah Spenrath (00:05.614)
Hi everybody and welcome back to the Energy Capital Podcast. I’m your host, Michaela. And today I have with me Reina Hornaday, who is a veteran renewable energy developer with over 20 years of experience advancing the energy transition across Texas, bringing more than one gigawatt of renewable energy projects into commercial operation. As the founder and co-owner of Caprock Renewables and Fortress Microgrid and Caprock DLE, a direct lithium extraction venture developed in partnership with Texas Tech University,
Micalah Spenrath (00:35.702)
Rayna leads the development of distributed solar generation storage and microgrid infrastructure across the state. Super excited to have you on the podcast, Rayna, and we’ll hop right in. So in case I missed anything in your intro, give us a quick introduction to your work and Caprock Renewables in general.
Raina Hornaday (00:54.402)
Thank you so much for having me. This is one of my favorite podcasts of all time. So I’m really thankful to be a guest today. Keprock Renewables came from very kind of homegrown roots. My family homesteaded in Eastern New Mexico, 1906. And my dad started Keprock Farms in the seventies. His dad and his grandfather farmed dryland wheat farm, milo, things like that on the high plains of Eastern New Mexico.
Raina Hornaday (01:23.434)
starting in 1906 and then until my dad passed away a couple years ago, but he farmed his whole life and was a diehard farmer and loved the land. And he also was the executive director of Eastern Plains Council of Governments. And that gave him the opportunity to put up a small Met Tower on our edge of our farm, which is where the Caprock name comes from. It is the Caprock. There’s lots of Caprocks. It’s not the only Caprock. There’s a town in Texas called Caprock.
Raina Hornaday (01:52.59)
But we had Caprock Farms and ranches. He put up the Met Tower. He and I would go get the chip, mail it to California, and we retained that data. And I took it to the Renewable Energy Roundup, which is a precursor of Clean Text, a TRIA. It was a TRIA event that was held in Fredericksburg, which I loved so much. And I think it was 2001. And met with lots of folks there.
Raina Hornaday (02:20.65)
Rainwater catchment, but renewable developers. And that’s how the Caprock Wind project that is right there between our farm and ranch in Eastern New Mexico was born. So that project lived its life 20 years. It was decommissioned by Leeward Energy and repowered next door with the same substation. So that’s where Caprock Renewables got its name. I founded it 10 years ago and the goal was to do utility skills solar.
Raina Hornaday (02:50.734)
We did 150, 200, and 300 megawatt projects in Texas. And during that time, that was really when the utility scale solar assets were being built out in Texas. And I had done this with wind, so it was really interesting to see how similar it was. But these, as you know, people from all over the world, the biggest companies come to
Raina Hornaday (03:16.332)
do business in renewables in Texas. It’s just the best market. It’s kind of the easiest market, energy only. And so I’m a small developer, boutique shop. Then I started Fortress Microgrid to kind of see how the microgrid industry needs could be met and ended up doing small agriboltake projects in the Valley. And so I have one of the biggest projects and then I think one of the smallest projects.
Raina Hornaday (03:44.088)
So that’s fun and just got into more meaningful, smaller projects. So doing a lot of things now, but that’s kind of how we got here.
Micalah Spenrath (03:52.31)
Yeah, thank you so much for that history. So when I investigated, that might be too formal, when I researched Caprock Renewables, it seems like y’all did a lot of work in the South Texas area. So just curious what initially drew you to focus in that region, the South Texas region, but also utility scale projects in general. So you mentioned that the ERCOT market was particularly attractive. I imagine the business case was really persuasive at the time.
Micalah Spenrath (04:19.053)
So taken all together, what really spoke to you about South Texas utility scale solar projects?
Raina Hornaday (04:25.826)
Well, the cost of solar just went down enough to make it feasible. And that’s one of the main drivers for this boom in solar we’ve seen. And our site selection for our projects is fully based on nodal data of where the best prices are for projects and substations and then where land is available. And that’s just such a big part of the development.
Raina Hornaday (04:54.392)
process is working with landowners. And as a landowner myself, I always advocate for landowners and just have some of the best landowners that I’ve been able to get to know. And it really is such a big process. The 300 megawatt project, we had to build a new substation. So it took two full years of construction on that. And we had the ribbon cutting and had a big tour and everything of that facility with everyone involved. And it was so rewarding to see it done. And the landowners just
Raina Hornaday (05:23.958)
So appreciative because it’s such a great thing for the family and the community and he’s gonna have sheep out there. So that’s always if we can do dual use in these situations with land, we always try to do that.
Micalah Spenrath (05:36.874)
Yeah, that’s amazing. So I’m a bit curious, as a follow up to that, can you walk me through your approach to a landowner when you’re thinking of partnering with them to develop a site for utility scale solar? What’s the value proposition there? What does the conversation look like?
Raina Hornaday (05:53.208)
So we send a lot of inquiries out and so a lot of conversations. But this particular project, the landowner responded and many times they’ll have multiple bids because or multiple, we call them LOIs or offers on their desk. And this landowner came to our office and said, I have term sheets in front of me for these big companies. I went with you because I know that
Raina Hornaday (06:23.116)
Even though you’re small company, with the bigger companies, they have a lot of different projects to pick from. And with you, I think you’ll really care for my project and get it over the finish line, which was really nice. And this landowner is in the energy industry as well, which is always interesting and helpful. But he just explained many times, but at the ribbon cutting that he loves the fact that it helps him keep the land and his family for generations to come. And his family had been there since the early.
Raina Hornaday (06:52.822)
I think even late 1800s. so many of these landowners are finding this as a way to continue the family legacy when children and grandchildren aren’t able to come and live remotely and farm and ranch like our parents and grandparents did. So it’s really just become an option for farmers and ranchers. so that’s one of the things, and then it’s making the land pretty much farming energy.
Raina Hornaday (07:22.23)
on your land, which is a funny way to put it, but it’s productive. And in this case, again, there was a coal plant retiring. So we took the place of the capacity that the coal plant was providing. And we went to a school board meeting and they were giving the coal plant award for being a good steward of, it was just so ironic at the time, but that’s how we’ve seen it happen. know, coal plants we knew were retiring. so.
Raina Hornaday (07:51.936)
In New Mexico, same thing, lots of renewables have been added as coal plants have been decommissioned. So it uses no water, which is really great. And again, if you take care of the soil and the vegetation management correctly, you can grow crops. I’ve seen lots of balers baling big round bales in between solar panels, which makes me so happy because it’s really productive. And then of course there’s the sheep and then cattle bull ticks is the…
Raina Hornaday (08:20.128)
next thing that’s coming. So I’m really excited about that. It’s happening a lot over the country, but we’ve seen a lot of interest here in Texas.
Micalah Spenrath (08:28.108)
Absolutely. mean, whenever I drive to the coast and you pass through the rural areas, there’s so many like cattle companies, just acres of cattle. I’m actually very interested to see if Texas will be an enthusiastic adopter of cattle photo-ics. We certainly have a lot of cattle.
Raina Hornaday (08:45.198)
and
Raina Hornaday (08:45.798)
a lot of land and that’s really one of the drivers for utility scale solar here is just there’s 97 % of the land is privately held so landowners can do what they want to do with their land and everyone needs additional revenue and this is often a great option for large operations.
Micalah Spenrath (09:06.006)
Absolutely. So something you mentioned, you are a boutique developer, if you will, so a small scale developer. So my question for you is, given the policy changes that we’ve seen with tax credits, federal policy adjustments, but also state changes as well, how does a small developer navigate those changes as compared to some of these larger developers with larger portfolios and presumably more resources?
Raina Hornaday (09:33.942)
Well, for sure more resources. It works for us because we don’t have the commitments that the larger companies have. So I think it’s just a give and take, but I love how small and flexible we are because we can respond to a project at a local school. And we’re working on a couple of larger projects, but a lot of our projects are custom for a producer.
Raina Hornaday (10:02.572)
I like those projects because they’re meaningful. The tax credits going away was obviously a change, but everyone kind of, you know, I was at the Capitol talking to educating and talking to the decision makers when all these bills were on the line. And it was really a high stress time, as you know, in the industry, but everyone, we got through it and we’re just continuing to do projects and we just have to make those economics work.
Raina Hornaday (10:31.496)
And we’ve always known that same thing with wind and tax credits with wind. so it’s just continuing to do what the cycle has always been, which we had to get there. And now we’re there and we have this huge need for energy. And so there’s a lot of energization of land and people coming in and saying, hey, how can I get the most amount of energy out of this land? Which is just an interesting
Raina Hornaday (10:59.07)
way to look at development that I don’t know, I just hadn’t really ever looked at it the way it’s being looked at now, which everyone’s trying to maximize their land for a data center or batteries or solar. So it’s just creating an analogy I really like that was more for the wind industry because all this is based on our grid and how our grid can handle this, which it really can’t. We need a lot more flexibility and we need a better roadmap, but
Raina Hornaday (11:27.948)
When my family homesteaded out, you know, they had a dugout, it’s still out there on our ranch. All the ranches out there had, there wasn’t transmission and they had wind chargers. And so they had distributed energy. They made their own energy. After that, they had every little ranch and farm has solar, I have solar panels that my grandparents had at Wells and they’re so old and
Raina Hornaday (11:56.994)
You can still get some juice out of them. And in the wind business, I was managing the development of seal of wind power at that time after the Caprock project was built. And we put up, I think, 1100 wind turbines between Amarillo and the New Mexico state line on I-40. So we always made the analogy. There was 1100 wind turbines out there before, and now we’re just getting it back to where it was. I think we just need more. And Texans want, landowners want energy.
Raina Hornaday (12:26.68)
security and independence. So if you’re able to produce your own power, people really like that.
Micalah Spenrath (12:32.078)
Absolutely. We hear a lot of the homegrown energy terminology and it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re doing. And you put it very succinctly, but also poetically, energization of land. And I think that that is really a huge opportunity. And like you said, a lot of landowners are looking to get the most out of their assets and partnerships with smaller developers like yourself that also value sustainability and stewardship. Match made in heaven, right?
Raina Hornaday (13:00.662)
Yeah, it’s rewarding and it just needs to be done thoughtfully. And I always come back, whether I’m in a room with big policymakers or community folks, education is really what is needed across the board, even between me and partners I work with in the oil and gas industry. I don’t know what they know, they don’t know what I know. So education kind of going back and forth that way, but
Raina Hornaday (13:26.924)
That’s one of the things I appreciate so much about Powerhouse Texas. And I’m so looking forward to being a part of this legislative session and just putting so much out there, which you and I might take for granted because we have the resources in front of us, but it’s hard to filter everything out and get to what’s helpful and what’s factual. And there’s lots of misinformation out there. So, Powerhouse, I love, of course, Clean Text.
Raina Hornaday (13:53.55)
I’m the biggest fan of, and then American Farmland Trust is one of my favorite things that I help with for their SARE project. I don’t know if you read about it or not, but we’re training 25 agricultural and conservative professionals. So we’re helping and we’re training like local ag folks and people on the water side of things, farm bureaus, agri-life extensions.
Raina Hornaday (14:23.156)
NRCS staff, things like that. And so it’s good for us to get a consistent sharing of information and dialogue because that’s who the farmers go to, to ask. They go to their ag extension agent, say, Hey, should I do solar? Should I do batteries? So that is a really important thing that, that American Farmland Trust is doing. And they do extensive research. They do a lot of.
Raina Hornaday (14:51.374)
questionnaires to farmers. So they really are getting a lot of data on this energizing land and how landowners can take advantage of hosting energy projects and dual use. And one of their farmers and ranchers has a large utility scale solar project on her family’s land and her son went to Texas Tech and then they got the contract to manage the vegetation.
Raina Hornaday (15:17.442)
which is part of the operation and maintenance contract and their son graduated from Texas Tech and moved home. And he has a job because he helps manage the sheep under the solar. So we have this group of industry folks that care a lot are helping put together these best practices across the board for development, which is needed. And, you know, I’m doing battery energy storage projects as well now also, and I go to these
Raina Hornaday (15:46.936)
co-ops and small communities and there’s not a standard operating procedure for these. There’s no real policy across all these different potential locations for these storage. So every time it’s like Groundhog Day, but I think eventually and I think it will see it a lot in the next session is just we’ll have some standardized policy for projects. So anyway, it’s an exciting time to develop in Texas and ERCOT for sure.
Micalah Spenrath (16:14.986)
Yeah, and I think you mentioned agrivoltaics as not only being energy jobs and bringing energy jobs to rural communities, but also agricultural jobs. So I think that’s an angle that isn’t talked about very much. We do acknowledge that agrivoltaics and utility-scale solar can bring energy jobs, but it also creates opportunities for agricultural professionals as well.
Raina Hornaday (16:37.954)
Yes, and that’s why like UTRGB and A and there’s lots of educational facilities like that that are doing real research on agrovoltaics for high producing crops. And vineyards, our first project was on a tiny vineyard in the Rio Grande Valley. But what probably has been one of the biggest industries that have come out of this dual use agrovoltaic, well, we call it agrovoltaic, is the solar sheep.
Raina Hornaday (17:07.15)
You know, I have a good friend that has solar sheep and it’s just a really big business to run these sheep and move them from site to site. And then you have the dogs that protect the sheep. I mean, it’s just work and it’s an industry and it’s growing and there’s a lot of companies involved. And so it’s really cool. Like you said, it’s potential jobs for locals really.
Micalah Spenrath (17:29.55)
Absolutely. So you’ve mentioned several different projects. So I do want to ask, from a development standpoint, what are the most persistent bottlenecks in getting some of these projects from early stage development into interconnection and operation in the ERCOT market today? An easy one for you.
Raina Hornaday (17:46.509)
Well…
Raina Hornaday (17:49.326)
Yeah, well, it’s just so interesting because the interconnection queue, I’m sure you know, at end of 2025, there was 432 gigawatts of generation request. And then the large load, think they, ERCOT had 225 new large load requests in 2025. So it’s pretty much, I think one of the ERCOT folks said it’s outgrown the process. Like that’s too much. So interconnection.
Raina Hornaday (18:18.006)
obviously is a big one. I mean, that’s why I got into doing smaller projects. So, you know, we do sub 10 megawatt projects for battery storage and a couple solar, but the reason we did that is just because you don’t have to do all the interconnection, the full studies for interconnection. You don’t have to go through that interconnection process. And it’s really been such a learning experience for the distributed
Raina Hornaday (18:47.788)
energy, like I said, it goes back to kind of the original, it’s energy projects that are on site. And now with data centers, data centers want that. So they want behind the meter, they want as fast as possible. They want every electron. So that’s really interesting. It’s been not the fastest process because a lot of places that we go to do projects, it’ll be the first project for this municipality or co-ops. And then we’ve been delayed.
Raina Hornaday (19:17.046)
because we’ve worked with folks that say, I’m waiting for rulemaking to come out, for policy to be clear for us on what’s going to happen. And I’m like, wow, it’s hard to hear that because we have deadlines and we have project schedules. And then when something like that happens, the other thing that’s happened is a lot of the leaders of the utilities and munis and co-ops are the talents getting picked off and hired off.
Raina Hornaday (19:46.542)
for other projects and big companies. And so then the people that know all the information about forever of their system and their needs and their really smart electrical engineers that have run the cities and municipalities, they’re all of a sudden gone. So it’s an opportunity for other people, but at the same time, it slowed processes down a little bit for us.
Micalah Spenrath (20:13.312)
Yeah, so to summarize, some bottlenecks that you’re experiencing are first, if it’s kind and specific geographies. So you’re having to lay the foundation for some of those areas that haven’t had or hosted projects before. So there’s a learning curve with that policy and changes there, especially in the regulatory space. Those can also pose delays for you. And as a developer, time is money. So that can also be a challenge as well.
Micalah Spenrath (20:40.866)
and then loss of institutional knowledge. So like you said, some of the best talent is transferred from the public sector to the private sector, and that can also present challenges to developers as well. So do you think that sums up your thoughts?
Raina Hornaday (20:55.778)
I think so.
Micalah Spenrath (20:57.175)
Awesome. All right. So the policy environment for renewables in Texas has become more dynamic in recent years. How are regulatory and legislative proposals
Micalah Spenrath (21:08.758)
affecting your project pipeline and your investment decisions.
Raina Hornaday (21:13.07)
We went through the SB, the 819 obviously was the biggest one, 388 and then SB 715 last year. So they didn’t make it, but we kind of know that they’re not buried. They’re probably coming back. So I think the fear of what could happen in the future and really the tariffs have been a big kind of jolt to the system, just direct kind of gas.
Raina Hornaday (21:42.262)
when you have orders coming and then all of a sudden the price is completely different. And some of the orders might be in transition and some might be, it’s new problems and new challenges that we’ve never seen before. So storage, the real time co-optimization plus batteries that launched in December 2025, that really has given storage a lot of, you know, it’s a tailwind for storage. So it’s big upgrade.
Raina Hornaday (22:10.84)
for that. And I think there’s a lot of opposition about storage out there in different areas. But it really is a great thing for the grid. And it’s a great thing for local communities. And it just provides flexibility and resiliency. And we go places and they think they’re anti-storage and we walk them through what it does because lots of people think, you’re taking my energy and are you paying me for it? And it’s just
Raina Hornaday (22:40.214)
an understanding or misunderstanding of how battery energy storage functions and how they can potentially make money, know, ancillary services and how it benefits them and the local environment. So yeah, I think going into this next session, just seeing, being prepared for what’s going to come at these renewable energy and then battery energy storage. But I think with the AI infrastructure that’s being built, batteries are just
Raina Hornaday (23:10.174)
they’re being added to many, many, of these big projects. it’s just going, everything that can get built is being built right now and it’s exciting.
Micalah Spenrath (23:21.742)
Yeah. So you had mentioned some of the legislation looking to regulate the renewable energy industry. And some of that legislation, specifically Senate Bill 819, could actually dampen investment in that industry in Texas, which, as you mentioned, might be counterproductive given the demand that we’re seeing from large loads and data centers. So I recall during session, I think you personally testified on Senate Bill 819.
Micalah Spenrath (23:50.776)
but there were also, I think, over 100 other stakeholders that showed up as well, many of them landowners, some of them veterans, this really diverse group of folks. So my question is, with such a show of support for the renewable energy industry, what’s it going to take for lawmakers to get the message and for them to maybe pivot some of these renewable energy legislative proposals?
Raina Hornaday (24:15.852)
Well, I really think it’s education and it’s also proof. mean, so many of these large renewable developments have provided so much revenue for conservative rural communities. So it’s hard to ignore that after we have like Joshua Rhodes does the data gathering and has these papers on how big that figure is of the economic boom.
Raina Hornaday (24:45.004)
to rural developments because of renewable energy. And a lot of these decision makers and policy leaders and legislators are landowners. So as I said, Powerhouse, which obviously very, very well, I just love that they’re getting together energy policy directors, staff, chiefs of staff, and bringing experts in, not at the fire drill that we did, which I loved because it was such a kumbaya, like it was just amazing.
Raina Hornaday (25:14.616)
But this is preemptive. I mean, we’re starting this 12 week cohort for education. And I think that’s just so important because we have to get the facts and we got to get the facts to the policymakers, to the voters. I mean, in general. And so I really just think it does come down to education and then having really good, smart. That’s what I like about American Farmland Trust, having smart solar principles, going in with a real positive
Raina Hornaday (25:44.344)
plan for the community and for the landowner and for the whole thing. So it’s very much a community engagement industry. It always has been. You always know that you meet the judge. You always meet the school district. You always go in front of the city council. I’ll often meet multiple mayors doing a project. And so it’s neat. mean, Texas is incredible. I love it. It’s beautiful. And it’s a great place to be in this industry.
Micalah Spenrath (26:11.032)
Can we explore the school connection a little bit more? I do know that renewable energy projects contribute to local economies, but you’ve mentioned school boards a couple times. So how do your projects interact with the educational system?
Raina Hornaday (26:26.818)
Well, after I said it, I realized, you we used to have tax advantages through the school. So we would make deals with the school so they would have increased revenue. And so that got voted out of, I think it’s been a couple years. Yeah, it was, I think, three years ago.
Micalah Spenrath (26:45.442)
And that’s chapter 313.
Raina Hornaday (26:47.438)
Yeah, that’s 313, which was such a big part of the economics of our projects. It was such a big part of the development because, like I said, you go in and I think that’s why I mentioned it. It’s just very memorable to go to these school boards. It’s really cool to see all the different school boards in the Rio Grande Valley and Starr County and just see the gyms and meet all the people. And oftentimes the school board members, and I met with the landowner yesterday and he’s like, I’m on the school board.
Raina Hornaday (27:15.256)
They’re landowners and they’re leaders in their communities. So those are the people that are really good to have advocacy standpoint for local projects. So because of 313 went away, we don’t, aren’t as active, but it’s still important to be every school board that I met with. Someone would inevitably say, do you have information that you can share? Do you have a poster about renewable energy? That always stuck with me. Like the science departments.
Raina Hornaday (27:45.078)
want basic information about renewable energy. And then we’re going and talking to legislators on renewable energy. So that’s why I’m just so interested in getting as much education as possible, which people are doing a really good job. There’s so many industry folks and nonprofits that have podcasts and gatherings and happy hours and luncheons and roundtables. So I think it’s happening, but it’s a big industry. It’s a big state.
Raina Hornaday (28:14.996)
and we need a lot more of it.
Micalah Spenrath (28:16.686)
Absolutely. So it’s certainly important to continue engaging schools and educational facilities, even if it’s not an economic partnership, as was the case in a Chapter 313 policy environment.
Raina Hornaday (28:30.41)
And from a workforce perspective as well. I mean, this is a career path in Texas for students looking to what they want to do, whether it’s legally or trade school. Texas Tech, where I went, has a great renewable energy program and they work with a lot of developers and they have a lot of internships. so a lot of education comes out of these big institutions in Texas.
Micalah Spenrath (28:55.598)
Awesome. So I did want to highlight some of your battery projects. So what’s been your experience deploying? Is it utility or distributed batteries?
Raina Hornaday (29:05.42)
We have both under development. mean, they’re the sub 10 megawatt batteries. And so they’re considered distributed generation, but 10 megawatts is a lot. When you think about distributed generation, you normally think about rooftop solar or something like that. So these 10 megawatt projects, think they’re massive, but yeah. So it’s very different, just the land, if anything else. Like when I developed wind, it was
Raina Hornaday (29:35.424)
So many landowners, so many acres, and now I’m renting or trying to purchase square feet of half an acre, an acre, two acres. So it’s just so different from a land perspective, which is interesting. I mean, all the same development hurdles and SUPs and just working with the fire departments and working with the local permits and just depending on where you are, there’s different requirements in different places depending on how rural your projects are.
Raina Hornaday (30:04.96)
So, it’s been good. I’ve enjoyed it.
Micalah Spenrath (30:07.758)
Micalah Spenrath (30:08.139)
So based on your vast experience in the state developing different types of projects including energy storage, what’s your impression? How have the economics of these projects changed over the years?
Raina Hornaday (30:19.406)
Well, as so many batteries have been added onto the grid, it doubled with battery storage doubled in Arcot last year again, and with so much increase into Texas, like our population is looking to increase significantly and potentially double. And the Permian Basin electricity needs are growing so fast, so we’re trying to add transmission.
Raina Hornaday (30:48.226)
That’s a long time lead item, takes a lot of planning and a lot of construction time for all the reasons. So batteries have really become the stop gap that is needed. You know, if we can install batteries, that helps us utilize all the other energy supply sources to the grid, mainly solar and storage. And that helps us be able to deal with this long lead time we have for building out.
Raina Hornaday (31:17.09)
the transmission that we need to support the growth. So it’s just a super stabilizer for the grid and we’ve seen that now since Yuri, all these batteries have come on and we just haven’t had the volatility in pricing, which is a big part of getting these projects financed, but they’ve just become such an important part of being able to have really fast dispatchable power whenever we need it faster than
Raina Hornaday (31:46.126)
kind of anything else. And this is a completely energy only, entirely market driven. it’s interesting, just like everything in ERCOT, it’s unique to the energy only market and people are slowing down the large developments, but then we have the AI data centers. So those are picking up a lot of behind the meter and bring your own power.
Raina Hornaday (32:09.383)
and those type opportunities. So there’s still just significant development and build out in batteries and arcot and that’s going to continue.
Micalah Spenrath (32:18.636)
Yeah, hopefully. So you did mention that maybe some projects haven’t come to fruition just based on different factors. That actually aligns with the most recent GIS report from ERCOT, so showing the interconnection queue. In that report, it also looks at canceled projects. And in that list, there are a number of battery storage projects that have been canceled, as recently as February 2026.
Micalah Spenrath (32:44.92)
So just based on your experience, what could be some of the causes to canceling some of these projects? Why are some battery projects not being built?
Raina Hornaday (32:55.502)
I mean, I know some projects have been canceled due to inability to secure permitting. We all know there’s some areas and communities that are against developments. So that’s where siting is so important. You have to have the support from the local folks that will come to the site if they need to respond to something. And so it’s what I always go back to is education and just working with the local entities.
Raina Hornaday (33:25.208)
for fire safety. That’s obviously one of the big ones. Noise is one, although these aren’t noisy projects. They don’t create a ton of noise, but it really is just site specific. So I think that’s probably one of them. Obviously, funding financing would be another that’s changed significantly. And there’s supply chain issues still. There’s lots of complexity to this and…
Raina Hornaday (33:52.438)
It’s happening fast. So things can, what you think might be able to be done ends up not being able to be built for a very technical reason that you don’t know until you get farther down the line. So I think that’s why we see a lot of the drop-off, but I am optimistic about renewables being built in Texas going forward and smart solar, things like that, responsible siding and batteries paired with those, which is just kind of the magic puzzle piece.
Micalah Spenrath (34:22.454)
Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, there are a whole host of energy storage projects that are still in the queue and are poised to bring additional megawatts to the grid. So even though there are cancellations, they are vastly outnumbered by the projects that are still in the queue and seeking interconnection. So that’s always a positive indicator. But to your point, siting and permitting can be a barrier. that just, to your point,
Micalah Spenrath (34:49.002)
illustrates the importance of partnering with first responders, local leadership, community leaders as well, and members, and making sure that everybody feels that they have some ownership in some of these projects. So I think that that’s a really interesting point to make. So I do want to save some time. So, Reyna, as we had mentioned, you have decades of experience in this industry in the state of Texas. What
Micalah Spenrath (35:12.822)
are you looking at towards the future? Where do see this industry going? What are some things that we still need to tackle in the state to make sure that renewables can still provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy to Texans?
Raina Hornaday (35:25.976)
think the flexibility of providing flexible grid and a lot of that is distributed generation, like being able to do projects that meet demand right there instead of like the CREZ line, which provided renewable energy into big city centers that were very far away from the generation. So I think we’re already seeing a lot of that. I think it’s going to get better.
Raina Hornaday (35:53.14)
Landowners are getting more involved and they have over the years, but having a smart option for things to do with your land and your legacy is going to continue to happen. Microgrids are happening quite a bit in the Permian Basin where all this oil and gas load is growing so quickly and with around data centers that bring your own power. I think there’s lots of solutions that only renewable energy can provide.
Raina Hornaday (36:21.204)
in the timeframe that these builders need. So I think we’re going to continue to see a lot of growth and it’s going to get better. I think it’s going to get smarter. It’s going to get more localized, which is makes a lot of sense and with any energy supply that you’re doing, but being able to add batteries to solar really makes a ton of sense. So I think we’re finally going to see those co-located again and again.
Micalah Spenrath (36:50.53)
Well, thank you so much for joining us on the Energy Capital Podcast, Reyna. Your insights have been extremely valuable.
Raina Hornaday (36:56.982)
It
Raina Hornaday (36:57.244)
was great to visit with you.
Micalah Spenrath (37:01.678)
Thanks for listening to the Energy Capital podcast. Thanks so much to Reina for a great conversation and to all of you for listening, engaging, and caring about how Texas powers its future. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual platforms. For deeper analysis each week, please subscribe to the Texas Energy Empower newsletter at texasenergyempower.com. We’re also on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube. Big thanks to Nate Peeby, our producer,
Micalah Spenrath (37:31.414)
I’m Mikayla. Stay curious, stay engaged, and keep building a smarter energy future.
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