How renewables are saving Texans billions

My understanding was that the companies aren't getting rich because competition has saturated the market and revenues from energy arbitrage have plummeted in 2025 because everyone needs to discharge during the same limited window.

"Vermillion said, adding that most battery operators in Texas earn the bulk of their revenue during a handful of extreme weather days, so “there might be 15 days over the year that matter for capturing revenue.”

https://www.ess-news.com/2025/05/15/is-texas-battery-landsca...

It was about 15 years back, I remember some reasonably smart but partially anti-renewables folk talking about this. By anti-renewable I would say they were just skeptical with a much higher bar to get over than others. Weren't saying it was impossible but where much more cynically inclined.

They argued there would be issues with renewables unless there was a big uptake in storage. That was the key to making it all happen. Well now we have a big uptake in storage and it is starting to look like the future in that sense is very bright.

Scale is funny like that, it looks like it won't happen for the longest time and then it suddenly become ubiquitous. There is still a long way to go but improvements are happening fast.

I work for a UK company that manages grid scale batteries - they're awesome!

I wonder how they look in a US landscape that's hostile to renewables. Arbitrage works because solar and wind and very cheap and very indeterminate. The more gas, coal and biofuel (all much more expensive but more flexible) in the grid, the less opportunity for arbitrage.

And tax payers pay for their F ups and then some additional bonuses to the gas traders of BP when Texas freezes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-27/bp-emerge...

Why would pumped storage be better than the massive amounts of batteries being added right now? Batteries scale small, scale big, can be put where there's already transmission, can be put at either sides of grid congestion to lower that congestion, can regulate frequency, deliver reactive power, and be moved to new locations if the grid changes and they could be better deployed elsewhere. Literally a Swiss Army knife that can grow to whatever size is needed, and they can be thrown up in months as opposed to years.

I'm not sure if hydro could compete on price any more, either. Batteries are so cheap.

Pumped hydro is a pretty cool solution, but it requires very specific geography and water supply combinations that are unfortunately relatively rare. I'm not that familiar with Texas's water and elevation situation, but it seems less obviously a good candidate than the TVA. Don't get me wrong, pumped hydro is an awesome solution where it works, but it's not easily deployable in the way that batteries are.

What happens to your battery when you are in the middle of a drought and your "battery" doesn't have enough water in it to operate as a battery?

ERCOT is roughly 3x bigger than TVA in terms of both energy demand and service area.

> When in reality as soon as an economical and private sector solution is there, republicans are on board

The leader of the conservative party has claimed that windmills kill whales, cause cancer, are "garbage" and pledged to prevent any being built in his second term.

> They just dont want the state to fund the cause and don’t consider it the state’s role or problem or the state as a solution to a problem that isnt wholly solved by the proposed expensive solution

Texas Senate Bill 819 "relating to renewable energy generation facilities; authorizing fees." would have made it the states role to create an expensive solution.

> (1) for a solar power facility, ensure that all facility equipment is located at least: (A) 100 feet from any property line, unless the applicant has obtained a written waiver from each owner of property located less than 100 feet from the facility; and (B) 200 feet from any habitable structure, unless the applicant has obtained a written waiver from each owner of the habitable structure; and

> (2)for a wind power facility, ensure that all facility equipment is located at least 1,000 feet from the property line of each property that borders the property on which the facility is located, unless the applicant has obtained a written waiver from each owner of property located less than 1,000 feet from the facility

Texas Senate Bill 388 "relating to the legislature’s goals for electric generation capacity in this state." would have made it the states role to create an expensive solution.

> (a) It is the intent of the legislature that 50 percent of the megawatts of generating capacity installed in the ERCOT power region [this state] after January 1, 2026 [2000], be sourced from dispatchable generation [use natural gas].

are the Texas bill sponsors not part of the aggregate conservative position?

I think this seems at odds from what I hear from republicans using retoric that's anti-renewable, anti-climate change and pro-oil.

Ignoring that though, energy is a market defined by government policy.

To give an example, solar assets can't control when they output, so many countries have contracts where solar gets a fixed price. Without that, peak solar times might even have negative pricing.

Those are two seperate ways to frame a market, one making renewables profitable and one making them uneconomic.

We can shrug and say "make them profitable under the current conditions" but that ignores the fact that fixed prices for output makes energy cheaper and cleaner as a whole.

My point is, there is no "true market", its something governments define and control. The question should be what outcomes you want.

I'd argue for cheaper, cleaner and more diverse energy, but I'm not in the US.

One of the roles of the state in a mixed economy is to cautiously intervene when there's market failure. Whether through tax policy or industrial policy. Republicans don't want to stop the market failure because they don't believe there is market failure. It's not only a disagreement in values it's a disagreement about basic scientific and economic facts.

Now do oil. How do Repubkicans feel about subsidies for oil?

How is this getting out of the way:

“In markets like Texas, the wholesale price of electricity is set equal to the price of electricity from the most expensive generator needed to meet demand, often referred to as the marginal generator.”

Why the hate on California apparently it’s 11th in the country with 43% renewable

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renew...

Lot of others that could be complained about (like Florida and Arizona)

I feel like Washington state doesn’t get enough credit. 72%+ from renewables and water reservoirs are the original grid scale battery.

It’s not a contest if the deployments are occurring

"how much people talk"

Is hot air a useful commodity?

> it has to increase the cost of energy because you have to pay for renewables and pay for the battery operators to do nothing and pay for the gas operators to do nothing.

No, it doesn't have to increase the cost.

If you have a town powered by gas, the cost of maintaining and staffing the gas plant is locked in.

But most of the cost of that gas plant is the fuel.

If the total cost per kWh of a solar or solar+battery installation is lower than the fuel cost of the gas plant, then you build it. It saves you money even though you're paying the gas operators to do nothing part of the time.

If it's not cheaper than fuel, you don't build it. No harm no foul.

Follow that strategy and you'll end up with lots of renewables without wasting a penny.

Though honestly some idle gas plants don't cost that much. How many kilowatts do you need? 4? Okay, the fixed costs for 4 kilowatts of combined cycle gas power are $50 per year. That's all it takes to have backup production for the entire grid, even with no base load plants anywhere.

This has been a reasonable point to bring up. Renewables when they are first coming into the system represent only a small part of the energy supply. But as they get bigger, the swings in availability end up swinging the entire system around to a larger degree. This is usually where Gas plants take up the slack trying to balance out the system. Storage is the key.

I suspect this is an issue that looks worse in 'intuitive' foresight but not so bad in educated retrospective but we will not know until we pass through that point. I am but an armchair "expert" on this. Usually when something like this comes up, 15 people who know better than me will highlight something I was not aware of.

The issues with Texas and the UK are that their grids are relatively isolated. Like here in Finland, we have a bigger share of renewables than the UK or Texas, but electricity is still cheaper than UK and pretty much the same as in Texas.

> Texas is the absolute best case scenario,

Better examples around the globe and within North America are non isolated grids - Texas is in a weak position to share it's excess and to get back energy from wind blowing in other states.