November 2017 will be remembered as the month in which wind energy became the second-largest source of electricity in Texas, the land synonymous above all else with oil.

The Lone Star State, as Texas is nicknamed, is slowly but inexorably placing greater and greater reliance on renewables. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, by 2040 electricity generated from coal in the United States will be half what it is today.

Texas wind surpasses coal, and by 2019 the overtaking will be definitive

Wind power's second-place position in the Texas energy mix was reached thanks to the final push provided by the commissioning in November of a new 155-megawatt facility built in western Texas, whose contribution helped raise the state's wind capacity to over 20,000 megawatts — enough to power 4 million homes on a hot Texas day — thereby surpassing the capacity of coal-fired power plants, which stands at 19,800 megawatts. According to Joshua Rhodes, a researcher at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, the next milestone should come in 2019, when wind power will be able to generate more electricity than coal-fired plants.

Renewables grow as fossil fuel plants close

In Texas, the utility that controls 90 per cent of the electricity grid is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), which supplies energy to 24 million customers and feeds into the grid electricity produced predominantly from natural gas and coal — sources that are increasingly making way for wind, which over the course of a decade has grown from 2 to 15 per cent in the state. Joshua Rhodes sums up the state's march towards renewable energy as follows: "We're used to seeing wind numbers go up, up, up, but we're not used to seeing the number of coal plants go down" — which is, however, happening in a very serious way in Texas too.

Facing the coal crisis, communities try to restart with renewables and education

In Texas, coal-fired power plants are going through a — it has to be said — black crisis. In November, the state's largest electricity producer, Vistra Energy, headquartered in Dallas, announced its intention to close three coal-fired power plants. The closure of Monticello in north-east Texas, Big Brown east of Waco, and Sandow near Austin will cause the loss of over 800 jobs and the closure of two coal mines. This is a reality also taking shape in other parts of the US, where there are plans to convert power plants into renewable energy facilities.

It has happened, for example, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where in 2014 the Mount Tom plant closed due to lack of profitability and a 5.76-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility is being built in its place, sufficient to guarantee renewable electricity for one thousand homes. In other areas of the US, such as Appalachia, the aim is to move away from a single-sector economy by encouraging the creation of new businesses and seeking to revitalise the local rural economy, with a focus on boosting education for younger generations — the only way to ensure that young people have the tools they need to meet the challenges of new markets.

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