Page 15 - NBIZ JUNE 2024

Share of Renewable Energy
Triples

The share of renewables for
Texas’ overall electricity consump-
tion tripled from 2010 to 2023,
a product of federal tax credits,
falling installation and materials
costs, bountiful wind and solar re-
sources, and state-incentive-backed
transmission capacity growth. Wind
and solar accounted for roughly
one-third of electricity produced in
2023 (Chart 1).
However, this does not mean re-
newables supplied nearly a third of
energy needs every day. Renewables
present a unique set of challenges to
managing the power grid, including
a frequent mismatch between peak
load and peak supply.
As load peaks in the early
evening during the summer, solar
production declines, forcing natural
gas-fired generation plants to rap-
idly increase output (Chart 2). The
reverse occurs in the early morning,
when gas facilities ramp up (as
households start their day) and trail
off as solar output emerges with the
rising sun.
Similarly, load follows an uneven
pattern on the coldest winter days,
again not aligning well with the
timing of solar output and often
prompting the need for gas plants
to ramp up quickly. (Chart 3).
Meanwhile, wind also presents
resource availability challenges.
When the wind doesn’t blow, the
enormous and growing level of
installed wind capacity is unavail-
able, and another power source has
to take its place. Such uneven cycles
on gas plants accelerate wear on the
facilities, contributing to unplanned
outages and maintenance downtime.
The thinning margin between
thermal plant capacity and peak
load has produced periods of high
and volatile wholesale electricity
prices across the state. Statewide
wholesale electricity prices, which
typically average below $100 per
megawatt-hour, shot past $1,000
per megawatt-hour 15 times during
summer 2021. Prices crossed
the $1,000 threshold 182 times

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