Solar is bigger in Texas
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Texas passed California as the state with the most power-generating capacity from big solar projects, new industry data shows.
Why it matters: Growth of these utility-scale arrays highlights the wider trend that Texas is a lab for almost every aspect of the energy and climate future.
The big picture: Long the country's biggest wind producer, Texas is now second in battery storage too.
- The state's utility-scale solar capacity reached 21.9 gigawatts in Q2, moving ahead of California's 21.1 GW, the American Clean Power Association (ACP) said Thursday.
- That's one-fifth of the country's total, the industry group said. And another 12 GW are under construction, more than the next five states combined, per ACP.
- California remains ahead on solar when you include rooftop systems.
How it works: My in-depth research suggests Texas is big, sunny, and windy. So that's one reason it's a renewables hotspot as demand grows and peaks get higher. But that alone doesn't explain why developers flock there.
- University of Texas at Austin expert Joshua Rhodes said via email that the state's cost allocation process for building transmission is simpler than other jurisdictions.
- Phil Sgro, an ACP spokesman, calls Texas a "unique" market with a "timelier permitting and interconnection process in ERCOT than in other regions."
- Grid stability is a big focus in a changing climate, with crises in recent years in the state exposed to extreme heat, cold, and hurricanes.
- Batteries boost flexibility, and Sgro said via email that ERCOT is helping storage "effectively participate" in wholesale markets.
Rhodes also points to the state's Competitive Renewable Energy Zones program launched in the mid-2000s that helped get wind to population centers. Now that transmission helps solar too.
- Other reasons include grid manager ERCOT allowing new resources even if transmission constraints mean some waste, called curtailment, Rhodes said.
- Also on the list: Texas' deregulated system makes it easy for corporations to contract directly for renewables, he said.
🛢️ State of play: Other things to watch in Texas:
- If U.S. oil giants based there can truly scale low-carbon businesses adjacent to their fossil fuel lines.
- Exxon and Chevron are investing in carbon capture, hydrogen and more, while Exxon is venturing into lithium extraction too.
- Occidental Petroleum is heavily involved in building direct air capture — helped along by DOE funding.
- And watch the country's largest oil and gas producing state to see how long frackers can keep learning how to extract more and more resources.
Meanwhile, Texas is increasingly a hotbed for climate tech startups, who now rub shoulders with incumbent energy companies.
- It's not random that the prominent startup incubator Greentown Labs chose Houston as their second location in 2020.
The bottom line: Texas is everything.
