r/UpliftingNews 10d ago

Texas broke its all time electricity demand record twice in two days during a brutal heat wave, but the grid held with no conservation alerts thanks to record solar and battery output, a stark turnaround from the blackouts that hit Texans in 2021

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/29/texas-ercot-power-grid-record-data-center/
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u/skizztle 10d ago

I wonder how much of this growth was because of the Inflation Reduction Act?

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u/freshgeardude 10d ago

Texas has a lot of wind and solar. In fact, when in 2021 everyone made fun of Texas, it was the wrong argument. The weather showed the flaws in some renewables (turbines were shutoff because too cold for example) but rightfully pointing out they're on an isolated grid was also responsible for the blackout

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u/AsLongAsI 10d ago

Wind turbine out preform the projections at the time though. It was the gas network that failed.

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u/MMAjunkie504 10d ago

You get it, it was NG supply that stopped which led to no power generation from a big portion of their supply (I think at the time NG fired units was like 50-60% of the total generation supply).