Clearly, the news of the week – far beyond CleanTechnica – Texas and some neighboring regions have been freezing and losing electricity. The vast majority of plants that went offline were thermoelectric (mainly natural gas). They were not equipped enough for the cold. A series of wind turbines also fell because no one had purchased the “cold pack”. (Note that there are a large number of wind turbines in cold, snowy and icy climates that work well. The Texas problem was just a problem of inadequate planning and cost reduction.)
In fact, even while some wind turbines were shut down, other wind turbines were producing more than expected, helping with the crisis. One of the best things about renewable energies is that they are widely distributed, decentralized, reliable and resilient. The more renewable energies are in a network, in general, the more reliable and resilient it will become.
Image courtesy of S&P Global
With that in mind, the following news brings some light into a gloomy week: Texas is expected to add another 35 gigawatts (GW) of solar and wind power capacity in the coming years, from 2021 to 2023. This is in line with data ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc.) on what is being developed for the next few years. If Greg Abbott, Tucker Carlson and the shale gas mafia get what they want, they will slow the growth of clean energy – mistakenly blaming all the grid problems Texas has for other reasons in renewable energies seemed like a good option for them. However, the response has been strong and wide-ranging to this absurdity, and ERCOT’s “free market” approach to the grid will remain apolitical towards electricity sources anyway, meaning that buyers choose renewables. cockroaches.
The world is turning to renewable energy, and that includes the energy capital of the United States. “Short-term additions – which are largely supported by interconnection financial security deposits, federal tax incentives and energy purchase contracts – would more than double ERCOT’s solar and wind footprint to 64 GW in just three years,” he writes S&P Global.
Folding !!#Texas will add an additional 35 GW of wind + solar energy over the next 2 years, doubling its current capacity.
Also studying the addition of 26 GW of batteries.https: //t.co/QZJaSx4xeU #WWS #WindWaterSolar https://t.co/MU53ThPd9e
– Mark Z. Jacobson (@mzjacobson) February 20, 2021
In addition to wind and solar energy, huge growth in energy storage is also expected – something that would last a long time in a cold week like this. In fact, the expected growth in stationary energy storage is much higher on a percentage basis than even the growth in wind and solar energy.
Image courtesy of S&P Global
“According to ERCOT data, the installed capacity of the battery connected to your system could jump to 1.7 GW in 2021 and more than 2 GW in 2022 from 225 MW in 2020. But that only scratches the surface of more than 26 large-scale GW battery storage under study in ERCOT’s deepest interconnect queue – more than wind and second only to solar.
Everything that has been said above, on wind, solar and battery storage, deals only with large-scale projects. There is also a competitive market for solar and residential energy storage, a market that should be becoming more popular in the midst of this natural disaster and network disaster.
Tesla offers its seemingly unbeatable rate of $ 1.49 / watt in Texas, just like anywhere else, and you also have Sunrun, SunPower and many other market leaders installed locally. All of them offer the roof-solar-plus-storage combination now, and everyone should be able to reduce the price of the power grid – at least with the solar roof, if not also with the Powerwall energy storage system.
In addition to not having power or water for a period of time in the state, interest in having a more reliable and secure home power system must be growing in Texas. Stay tuned for more stories about this in the coming days, weeks and years.
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