Texas's energy consumption
Texas stands out as the leading state in the United States for both energy consumption and generation, producing an impressive 25,142 trillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2022. The state's vast energy resources include significant contributions from crude oil, natural gas, wind, and nuclear power. Texas accounts for 42.5 percent of the nation's crude oil output and leads in natural gas production, with 10.8 trillion cubic feet in 2022. The energy landscape is diverse, with the industrial sector being the largest consumer of energy, followed closely by transportation, reflecting Texas's vast geographical size.
In addition to being a major energy producer, Texas consumes 13.7 trillion Btu, supported by its status as the second most populated state and a strong economy. The residential and commercial sectors also contribute significantly to overall energy use. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the majority of electricity flow for about 23 million customers, underlining the state's intricate energy transmission systems, including extensive pipeline networks. Texas's aggressive investment in wind energy has made it the top producer in the nation, showcasing a commitment to renewable resources alongside traditional energy methods. This unique combination of energy assets positions Texas as a critical player in the national energy landscape.
Texas's energy consumption
Summary: While the United States is the world’s largest consumer of energy and is endowed with extensive energy resources, Texas is the leading US state in both energy consumption and energy generation.
Texas is the top energy-producing state in the United States and produces more energy as the third-, fourth-, and fifth-largest state producers combined, generating about 25,142 trillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2022. To achieve its status as the top energy-producing state, Texas relies on a diversity of energy resources. Texas was the United States’ largest producer of crude oil, the largest supplier of natural gas marketed production, the largest wind energy producer, and the fifth-largest generator of nuclear power.
Utilities
Because of Texas’s significant energy resources and energy consumption, there are dozens of utilities operating in Texas. TXU Energy, which is a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings, provides electricity to approximately 2.3 million customers throughout Texas. TXU is a privately owned company based in Dallas, and its customers are located throughout Texas. Owned by NRG Energy, Reliant Energy provides electricity to more than 3.7 million Texas customers. Headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey and Houston, Texas, NRG Energy is also one of the nation’s largest generators of electricity. CenterPoint Energy, with main operations in and around Houston, serves approximately 7 million customers in six US states. AEP Texas, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, is headquartered in Corpus Christi, Texas, and has more than one million customers in Texas. Entergy Texas, Inc., which was formed in 1994 when Entergy merged with Gulf States Utilities, delivers electricity to more than 512,000 customers across twenty-seven counties in southeastern Texas. The vast majority of such customers are residential consumers. CPS Energy is the largest municipally owned energy company in the nation, providing both gas and electricity in the greater San Antonio area. In total, CSP Energy serves more than 907,000 customers with electricity and nearly 373,000 customers with natural gas.
Petroleum
In 2023, the following were the top five crude oil–producing states in the United States: Texas, which produced 42.5 percent of the nation's total; New Mexico at 13.3 percent; North Dakota at 8.9 percent; Colorado at 3.7 percent; and Alaska at 3.7 percent. These top five producing states are spread throughout the country with notably limited production on the East Coast. In fact, Texas’s crude oil production exceeded federal offshore production. It is important to note that Texas’s type of crude oil, known as West Texas Intermediate (WTI) or Texas light sweet, is used as a benchmark in oil pricing and is the underlying commodity of the New York Mercantile Exchange’s oil futures contracts.
Natural Gas
Texas was also the top natural gas marketed producer, 10.8 trillion cubic feet in 2022. Texas was followed by Pennsylvania at 7.5 trillion cubic feet; West Virginia at 5.7 trillion cubic feet; Louisiana at 4.7 trillion cubic feet; and Oklahoma at 4.2 trillion cubic feet.
Nuclear Power
Texas, with 408 million megawatt-hours of net electricity generation in 2022, was among the top fifteen-largest generators of electricity from nuclear energy, with 40 million megawatt-hours of electricity generated by nuclear power, which accounted for 7 percent of the electricity generated in the state that year. Nuclear power plants are located in South Texas (owned by STP Nuclear Operating Company) and Comanche Peak (owned by TXU Power).
Wind Energy
Texas surpassed the 2015 goal set by the Public Utility Commission of Texas’s renewable energy mandate in 2005 and exceeded its 2025 goal in 2009, almost entirely with wind power. The most promising wind sources are concentrated in the Great Plains along with small pockets of strong wind resources in the Northwest and the Northeast. In the 2020s, Texas produced more wind energy than the next three states combined. In 2022, Texas had a wind-powered generation capacity of more than 40,500 megawatts. Some of Texas’s many large wind farms include Buffalo Gap Wind Farm, Capricorn Ridge Wind Farm, Horse Hollow Wind Farm, and Indian Mesa Wind Farm.
Consumption
In addition to being the largest producer of energy, Texas is the largest consumer of energy in the United States. In 2022, it consumed 13.7 trillion Btu. Such large energy consumption is in part due to Texas being the second most populated state and having the second-largest economy (the first in both measures being California). On a per capita basis, Texas ranked sixth in the United States in terms of energy consumption in 2022, with 459 million Btu consumer per capita. The state’s industrial sector, including many energy-intensive industries such as petroleum refining and chemical manufacturing, accounted for the largest share of energy use in Texas with 1.6 trillion Btu. The transportation sector accounted for the second-largest share (3.2 trillion Btu), due to the vast size of Texas. To transmit the enormous amount of electricity produced and consumed, Texas relies on an extensive transmission system. Consumption by the residential and commercial sectors accounted for 1.6 trillion Btu and 1.5 trillion Btu, respectively.
North American Electric Reliability Corporation
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit regulatory authority that is responsible for overseeing the US grid via standard setting and monitoring, has divided the US. electric grid into several regional entities.
The Texas Reliability Entity (TRE), with Texas’s extensive energy resources—including crude oil production, natural gas marketed production, nuclear power, and installed wind capacity—relied on the following mix for electricity generation for on-peak expected capacity during the summer of 2017: 60 percent gas, 25 percent coal, 7 percent nuclear power, 5 percent wind, 2 percent solar, and 1 percent other sources.
While the vast majority of Texas is within TRE, portions of northwestern and northeastern Texas are in the Southwest Power Pool Regional Entity (SPP RE), a small western tip of Texas is in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), and a small eastern portion of Texas is in the SERC Reliability Corporation (SERC) region.
Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators
Wholesale electricity is also transmitted throughout the United States via regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs). Texas’s main ISO is known as ERCOT, which stands for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT facilitates the flow of electricity for 23 million customers in Texas, or about 85 percent of the state’s electric load. Similar to the NERC’s multiple regions in Texas, ERCOT maintains the majority of electricity transmission in Texas, but there is also a little conducted by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) RTO.
Natural Gas and Oil Pipelines
Texas uses natural gas for electricity generation, transportation, and heating purposes. To transmit such natural gas resources throughout Texas and the United States, there is an extensive system of natural gas pipelines, the majority of which stretch across the eastern half of the United States with concentrations along the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. According to the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, approximately 66 percent of all oil in the United States (based on ton miles) was transported via pipelines, and only about 20 percent by water carriers. Many of these pipelines originate in Texas.
It is also important to note that Texas has an advanced infrastructure of port systems, interstate highways, and railways, which play their part in the transmission of energy resources. For example, Texas had the largest port, Houston, according to received tonnage of cargo in 2021 (although it is important to note that not all these shipments were for energy resources). Other significant ports were the Port of South Louisiana; New York/New Jersey; Beaumont, Texas; Long Beach, California; and Corpus Christi, Texas.
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