“Wind, solar help Texas meet record power demand during heat wave”

From Reuters:

June 30 (Reuters) – The Texas power grid comfortably met record demand during this week’s heat wave with abundant power supply from wind and solar plants, data from the grid operator showed.

We have data through April for Texas, in terms of proportion of electricity generation, that shows why we have this outcome.

Figure 1: Proportion of electricity generation from utilities from coal (blue), natural gas (tan), nuclear (green), renewable (gray), nuclear (red), all other (orange). Source: EIA.

The above data is up to before summer but here is what Reuters notes:

So far this week, solar power generation peaked at a record of 13,086 MW on June 25, according to ERCOT. Wind power, meanwhile, reached a high of 24,237 MW on June 28, which was below its all-time high of 27,044-MW set in May 2022, according to federal energy and ERCOT data.

ERCOT has added over 6,300 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power plants and over 1,300 MW of battery storage over the past year. The batteries help stabilize the grid, as battery operators store power when prices and demand are low and sell it back when prices and demand are high.

The storage business has been so good in Texas that investors including BlackRock and UBS have bought into battery projects.

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