Some last ditch political wheeling and dealing this weekend at the end of the state legislative session prevented the passage of $500 million in solar rebates. Other efforts to change Texas’s renewable portfolio standard to create extra requirements for solar, biomass and geothermal power had failed earlier.

There had been some earlier hope, as so many solar energy bills flooded the state legislature that it was sometimes called the “solar session.” The only solar-related legislation that passed, according to Luke Metzger of Environment Texas, was a provision that lets home owners finance their solar installations with help from the local government, and pay back the cost via extra property taxes over twenty years.

The legislature in Texas only meets every two years. This means that unless the governor of Texas calls a special session, solar incentives will not be considered again until 2011.

This is the second state to see renewable energy incentives fail in the legislature recently. The other state is Florida, whose legislature failed to enact a renewable portfolio standard which would have made new requirements for the state’s renewable energy use.