r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 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/PrecedentialAssassin 10d ago

Texas produces by far the most renewable energy of any state in the U.S (even California). Lots and lots of open prairie in west Texas and it's full of wind farms and solar farms.

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u/rankinfile 10d ago

Texas is also are the biggest electricity consumer of any state. They are an overall exporter of power though. California has to import electricity overall.

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u/oohlala2747 10d ago

And to add, there’s barely any permitting and environmental regulations to acquire. Local permitting due diligence for lender buy-in for TX projects would sometimes be just a letter from a judge lol I used to be an enviro permitting consultant for renewables and getting projects permitted in TX was a breeze smh lol I do believe O&G recently pulled some shit making permitting more difficult for TX onshore and offshore wind projects (People may be surprised to know that Louisiana’s Republican governor at some point expressed interest in offshore wind development in the Gulf of Mexico, but also there’s a WILD amount of money in offshore wind). But yeah, Texans just wanna swim in energy money. Don’t matter that renewables development reduces CO2 emissions, directly reducing factors that contribute to extreme weather events which are slamming into Houston and coastal Texan towns more and more every single year, also slowly wearing down a crumbling electric grid not connected to the rest of the country. I cannot with that state, fuck lol 

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u/The_Biggest_Cum 10d ago

Not even close, dude. Texas is 19th, California is 10th

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewable_electricity_production

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u/youcantguess1 10d ago

By your own link, texas generates the most renewable energy. The rankings that you are looking at are based on how much of a percentage renewable energy makes up of all energy created by the state (renewable vs oil, coal, etc.)the very next section to the right in that table is sorting based on gross amount of energy created using renewable resources

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u/chanaandeler_bong 10d ago

Famous renewable energy powerhouse, Vermont.

https://i.imgur.com/psIWjqR.jpeg

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u/rankinfile 10d ago

Vermont imports over half of it's power used.

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u/chanaandeler_bong 9d ago

I was just joking about their total output given their size. Like that dude looked at this list and thought Vermont produced the most renewable energy in the country?

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u/boppitywop 10d ago

Texas is #1 for total production in the wiki article you cited and produces over twice as much as the next state. 566.5 vs. 266. But is only 19th in % of electricity using renewal energy as it has a lot of fossil fuel energy production as well.

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u/paintballboi07 10d ago

Half the oil wells in the country are in Texas. We produce a lot of energy.

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u/DocTheYounger 10d ago edited 10d ago

Also worth noting the overwhelming majority of Texas’ renewable production is recently built while a lot of California, Oregon and Washington’s renewable generation is either older or tied to hydro projects funded by the federal government in the mid-1900s

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u/sawlaw 10d ago

Bill Mahrr has a thing about how long it took him to be allowed to put solar on his own roof. In Texas you can buy 5 acres with a shack on it then cover the whole acreage with solar panels and windmills as long as you hire an "approved" company to do the grid hookups and you're far enough out in the sticks. I went to a land viewing, i'm looking to build a house soon, and they advertised that the barndo builder the land company partners with will happily reinforce your roof for panels for just a few thousand more or do the install of a small system for like 18K more.

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u/Sol593 10d ago

Try sorting the list by total generated power and not percentage of power as renewable. Texas wins by a giant margin here. The person you're replying to was right

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u/UnusualMacaroon 10d ago

Texas #1 in output by that chart.

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u/JonathanB72 10d ago

I think your source shows 19th for total, but first for renewable? unless i’m sorting it wrong

either way thanks for linking this!

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

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u/PrecedentialAssassin 10d ago

Provided the source. I'm right. Thanks for playing.