As Texas Power Grid Faces New Strains, Renewables Help Meet Demand

During the scorching summer of 2023, the Texas energy grid wobbled as surging demand for electricity threatened to exceed supply. Several times, officials called on residents to conserve energy to avoid a grid failure.

This year it turned out much better — thanks in large part to more renewable energy.

The electrical grid in Texas has breezed through a summer in which, despite milder temperatures, the state again reached record levels of energy demand. It did so largely thanks to the substantial expansion of new solar farms.

And the grid held strong even during the critical early evening hours — when the sun goes down and the nighttime winds have yet to pick up — with the help of an even newer source of energy in Texas and around the country: batteries.

The federal government expects the amount of battery storage capacity across the country, almost nonexistent five years ago, to nearly double by the end of the year. Texas, which has already surpassed California in the amount of power coming from large-scale solar farms, was expected to gain on its West Coast rival in battery storage as well.

The swift growth of battery storage as a source of power for the electric grid, along with the continued expansion of large-scale solar farms, could not have come at a better time. Texas, like many other states, is facing a surge in its power needs from data centers, new manufacturing plants, cryptocurrency mines, growing residential demand and increasingly intense summer heat. Officials estimate that Texas, already the nation’s largest electricity consumer, could roughly double its demand in just a few years.

“Every state is going to go through this. Texas just happens to be the farthest along because we are growing our energy usage first,” said Michael Lee, the chief executive of Octopus Energy U.S., a subsidiary of the British electricity provider. “We’re seeing this in every other state, and all over the world.”