Solar power has been crucial to keeping the power on in Texas while the state experiences a major heat wave, even as some politicians have attempted to make it more difficult to connect renewable energy to the grid
So it goes in Texas, where a surge in solar power generation is helping the state’s primary grid operator navigate an ongoing and stifling heat wave.
“This kind of heat dome and long-lasting extreme heat conditions are not anything we have seen before in Texas, and yet they are happening more and more often," Silverstein added. "We cannot change our built infrastructure fast enough.” But that has done little to quell the political debate. This year, Republican lawmakers passed a bill designed to encourage the build-out of natural gas and pushed legislation that would have made it harder to pass permits and connect renewable facilities to the grid. The bill passed the Senate, but ultimately died in the House.
The solar boost is important for two reasons. ERCOT reported 10G W of power plant outages as of Saturday morning, or slightly less than the 11 GW of outages that the grid operator’s summer planning scenarios describe as an extreme scenario. The largest outages were reported at a nuclear plant and two coal facilities, which were running at reduced levels through Wednesday, according to the most recent ERCOT data.Solar has helped fill that gap, especially at critical times of the day.
Other clean energy technologies can help fill the gap during those hours, analysts said. Texas wind generation, which drops during the heat of the day, tends to rise in the evening. Short-duration lithium batteries can help, too. Texas has installed 2.3 GW of battery capacity, according to EIA data. That is the second most in the nation, but far less than the 4.9 GW of battery capacity installed in California.
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