More Renewables Records Fall in Texas Spring
Solar, storage and wind records continue to be set apace in shoulder season
Texas likes to sell itself as the βenergy capital of the worldβ which has historically been dominated by oil and gas production/exports. While oil and especially gas production in the Permian are near historical highs, solar, wind, and increasingly battery storage, has continued to grow faster than any other source of energy / capacity. This is showing up in recent weeks and months as renewables continue to set and reset new records almost every week. Driven by a combination of sunny, windy, warm spring weather and 23 GW of thermal outages (gas and coal plants typically schedule maintenance in the spring). Here are some of the records that have been set in the past few weeks:
Solar and storage set new ERCOT records of ππ ππ and π.π ππ, respectively.
Wind set a new generation record north of ππ ππ (last week)
Storage served 10% of system load for the first time
Solar + Wind served a record 76% of system load (86% emissions free, including nuclear)
One record has not been broken recently, however. The maximum renewables record (solar+wind) is over 2 months old, stuck at 39 GW. That could change this week.
Demand Side
With temps across Texas forecast to top out around 90 degrees later this week, HVAC loads in the late afternoon are expected to push peak demand close to 60 GW in the late afternoon / evening.
While we've seen higher diurnal peak loads earlier this year, it's mostly happened on cold mornings before solar has fully ramped up. On those days, late afternoon and evening load tends to drop off from the morning peak as daytime temperatures rise and heating loads decrease:
Thursday and Friday this week will have the opposite load shape with lower morning peaks and higher evening peaks driven by cooler morning temps and highs near 90 in the afternoon. Unlike heating load which is partially served by gas, cooling load is served almost exclusively by the electrical grid.
Supply Side
On the supply side, we have a favorable renewable forecast this week, with minimal cloud cover enabling optimal solar output and a sharp low pressure gradient driving strong winds primarily in west Texas and the panhandle:
So far this year ERCOT has been curtailing renewable generation around 75% of system load, leaving unused renewable capacity: combined seasonal capacity of wind and solar is nearly 70 GW! With the high load forecast coupled with optimal wind and solar conditions later this week, however, we should see a new total renewables record that could go north of 40 GW for the first time. Importantly, high cooling load will be concurrent with near peak solar production in the late afternoon. Battery storage may set a new discharge record in the evening peaks as the sun sets and demand remains high.
75% of 59 GW is 44 GW, and we have almost 70 GW of renewable capacity available!
Ultimately it will come down to transmission constraints and how efficiently plentiful Panhandle/West and South Texas renewable generation can be shipped east and north to the population centers of DFW, Austin, San Antonio and Houston. Higher temps also affect the thermal limits of high voltage transmission lines and effectively reduce current carrying capacity.
As many have pointed out, strategic siting of storage behind transmission constraints can help to soak up excess renewable generation and deliver it to the grid later when conditions allow, reducing system costs.
Whatever happens, you can find me obsessively switching between ERCOT and Gridstatus dashboards and Windy forecasts and Iβll post an update here once we have the numbers in!