As the market for renewables in Texas continues to strengthen and innovate, the power makeup of the state’s electric grid is slated to keep shifting toward adding more renewables. Last year, solar and battery storage installation led capacity growth within Texas’ electric grid, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published in January.
Texas added nearly 1,500 megawatts of battery storage to the grid’s summer rated capacities in 2023. That figure almost tripled to 4,374 megawatts added in 2024, according to the report.
Capacity from solar power added to the grid enjoyed a similar trajectory. In 2023, 4,570 megawatts were added to the grid, while in 2024, nearly 9,700 megawatts were added.
The capacity growth from solar and battery storage allowed the grid to manage another hot Texas summer in 2024, reported Garret Golding, an assistant vice president for energy program at the Dallas Fed.
In the spring of 2024, Texas’ installation of utility scale solar outpaced California’s, and jumped from 1,900 megawatts in 2019 to over 20,000 megawatts in 2024. As a result, solar met nearly 50 percent of the state’s peak power demand on some days.
As the state’s grid continues to experience a rapid shift in the type of generation available to serve demand, the state’s grid operator is looking to build a higher voltage transmission system, upgrading from 345-kilovolt lines to 765-kilovolt lines.