When Texas faced one of itshottest summers on recordin 2023, its power gridneared failureand the statenarrowly avoidedrotating blackouts.
That emergency came just two years after the state's power grid failed during ahistoric freeze, leaving millions of Texans without power or heat.
Texas is once again facing record summertime demand, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which released itssummer forecastthis week. However, energy experts say the grid is much more reliable than it was just a few years ago, in large part due to the growth of renewable energy sources.
"I think ERCOT has plenty of available capacity to get us through the summer," University of Houston Energy Fellow Ed Hirs said. "The huge growth in wind and solar generation on the Texas grid [over] the past five years is really the reason."
Hirs said natural gas, coal and nuclear are also needed for grid reliability, but those sectors haven’t seen as much growth as renewables.
"The portfolio of coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants has not expanded in more than 15 years," he said. "Without wind, solar and batteries on the Texas grid today, the state's economy would be dead in the water."
ERCOT said summer demand could reach just over 92 gigawatts, surpassing a 2023 record demand of about 85 gigawatts. A single gigawatt can power about 200,000 Texas homes on a hot summer day or cold winter night.
ERCOT vice president of system operations Dan Woodfin said during a meeting Tuesday that the agency is expecting a hotter summer than last year. Those high temperatures, and a growth in large energy consumers joining the grid, could lead to record demand.
"We've seen some crypto growth. We've also seen large load growth," he said. "Some of that's already starting to play out."
Since September, the state has added nearly half a gigawatt of cryptocurrency miners to the grid. From May to September of this year, ERCOT is predicting nearly 2 gigawatts of large energy consumers — like industrial facilities, data centers and cryptocurrency miners — will join the grid.
"The ERCOT forecast for the summer peak demand is significantly higher than it has been," Hirs said. "And that is because of the growth in demand, not just from the data centers or cryptocurrency mining operations, but the economic growth in the region. Oil and gas operations, LNG export facilities [and] commercial activities all across the state have continued to grow."
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