Texas' power grid meets record demand with investments in solar energy

[00:00:00]The sun's out in Texas, with temps consistently in the triple digits.

[00:00:05]>> We have an extreme heat warning.

[00:00:07]>> But so far, no major issues with electricity outages through this summer's heat waves. A far cry from just a few years ago when the power was out.

[00:00:17]>> Now more than 36 hours into the outages in below freezing temperatures.

[00:00:22]>> No heat, no water. Within days, hundreds dead as a deep freeze struck Texas in 2021. Natural gas lines frozen, power plants shuttered. That prompted Texas to make big changes. Large investments in natural gas, power plant winterization, becoming an energy powerhouse, not just from the oil underground, but from renewables.

[00:00:46]>> When God made Texas, he made the the the sun to shine when the wind doesn't blow and the wind to blow when the sun doesn't shine.

[00:00:53]>> Jonathan Snodgrass is a professor at Texas A&M focusing on the power grid. He says the state fully embraced wind and solar, now producing the most wind power and number two in solar power behind only California.

[00:01:07]>> They started building like crazy here.

[00:01:09]Um and in many ways, there are a lot of benefits to solar. Um especially if you couple them with batteries, then, you know, on the hot sunny days in Texas when the load is high, they can produce electricity.

[00:01:20]>> On any given day, solar, wind, and battery storage can now account for 35% of all energy generation in Texas, nearly matching natural gas. Compare that to New York, where on a typical summer afternoon, solar and wind only gets about 11% and in the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley, about 10%. And to give you a sense of just how much energy the state can harness from our closest star, on a sunny day, Texas can produce enough power from solar alone to just about power all of New York state on its hottest day of the year. We've been covering Texas's renewable energy boom for years now. Visiting a solar farm in 2023. When people ask me what I do, I love to tell them that I'm a farmer. And then, you know, a lot of times that prompts the question, "Well, what do you farm?" And I say, "The sun." Since then, solar generation has more than doubled.

[00:02:11]Now, the whole country is staring down rapidly rising demand brought on by everything from crypto to EVs to, of course, data centers. Texas is attracting hundreds of data center projects. If completed, there just isn't enough power to keep the lights on.

[00:02:27]Experts say renewables can help, but might not solve it alone.

[00:02:31]>> Of course, we can solve this challenge, but it is a challenge, and the answer is not just build more renewables because when the renewables are off, the data centers still want to be on.

[00:02:40]>> As robust as the Texas grid is becoming, it faces the same growing risks as the rest of the nation.

[00:02:46]Will there be enough power?

[00:02:49]>> What's interesting, Tom Winter is joining us now. Tom, such an interesting piece. Whether you're talking about Texas making a lot of power or New York which has some potential challenges, it seems like everybody's thinking about data centers, right?

[00:03:00]>> Yeah, big time, Hallie. And the focus here is that those solar plants really put only out one type of power on the grid, whereas a nuclear or gas plant put out two different types of power on the grid, and you really need both. So, everybody's looking to the future to batteries to not only solve the problem of the sun going down every night, but to be able to provide that type of power that smooths out the grid when the air conditioners are really kicking off, when the refrigerators are really kicking off. And it's going to require a lot more of all of it, Hallie, in order to meet, to your point, that data center demand.

[00:03:32]>> Tom Winter, appreciate you. Thanks.

[00:03:34]>> We thank you for watching, and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.