As temperatures spike in the Lone Star State, Texans are finding relief in an unexpected place: their power grid.
This summer, while electricity demand hit record highs, the state's use of solar power and batteries increased. The result? A more stable grid that's keeping the lights on and air conditioners humming, according to Canary Media.
Last month, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT, set a record for peak electricity demand at 85,931 megawatts. However, thanks to a whopping 20,799 megawatts of solar power generation, the grid stayed steady while prices remained low.
As the sun set and demand stayed high, batteries stepped in, discharging a record-breaking 3,927 megawatts to keep residents cool.
This solar-and-battery tag team means fewer worries about blackouts during heat waves and lower energy bills. It also reduces the need for dirty fuel-powered plants and cuts down on harmful pollution.
"You end up with a situation where ERCOT can beat its load record, and prices are pretty low — and an hour or two later is when you see your price spike, and you see the deployment of ancillary services and all the things that ERCOT has designed specifically to deal with this," Connor Waldoch, co-founder of Grid Status, told the publication.
What's even more impressive is that Texas achieved this without state-level clean energy mandates, according to Canary Media. The state's competitive power market has naturally allowed these cleaner, cheaper options to outshine their dirty fuel counterparts.
In fact, zero-carbon power sources now make up nearly half of the electricity on ERCOT's grid, with the Lone Star State surpassing California (well-known for planet-friendly policymaking regarding its grid) in various clean-energy categories, including utility-scale solar in 2023.
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Doug Lewin, president of Texas-based energy consultancy Stoic Energy, put it best, telling Canary Media: "It's not overstating it at all to say that solar and storage has been determinative [in keeping the ERCOT grid steady through heat waves]."
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