An incredible story:
When the latest batch of solar plants come on line, Texas will have added more solar capacity per capita in a single year than any US state and any country in the world.
Data from @EmberClimate.
www.ft.com/content/ef2f...
The context of this kind of matters: Texas was essentially forced to due to the absolute disaster & mismanagement of their own independent power grid. It’s had the most energy shortage disasters in the country in the last 20 years for a state with enough resources that it shouldn’t.
Yeah, but a headline like "Texas, the state with most chronically mismanaged power grid, sees swell of users adding solar to avoid more grid failures" doesn't put the right "screw the libs only free market good" polish that FT's editors want
Great to praise Texas for this.
As always, the comparison to California requires context: CA has far more rooftop solar than TX and only about half the electricity consumption, so its market for solar power is saturating.
Among other things this tells us that the economics - solar+battery is now the cheapest way and will get even cheaper - are finally winning against even the most entrenched fossil-fuel stupidity.
The economics of batteries are you just license people to run commercial grid scale batteries, and when the price goes negative, they buy, and when its $3000/kw they sell. Lot of people are building private gridscale batteries
This is the state that asked Ford to donate vehicles with generator capabilities because they were so woefully unprepared for grid issues.
IMO this is a big deal regardless of your politics. Energy independence is the future
Literally, I got on that boat before the politicians, the capitalists and tv anchors, started fighting over pity reasons/excuses.
Like, what's not to understand???
The Sun 🌞 shining on Earth is free!
To capture and use it, is all humans have to do. That's it.
Then we claim we're "so smart" eh?😂
I mean it's even meant to increase jobs.
Like hey, 100 of you, install panels , labor work.
Another 100, weekly cleaning and repair.
Another 100, electrical experts and data centre managers.
Another 100, work with state power and watch over supply and allocation and expansion.
Economy my azz!😏
Truth.
What ticks me off about the rage farmers is that while they are typically libertarian, they wouldn't be libertarian enough to not apply for subsidies if there were rage farming subsidies.
This could be the sunshine state, but no, FPL has a choke chain on our legislators.
I can't even install panels because insurance companies cancel people's policies when they do here!
Und in Deutschland wird bei jeder Gelegenheit gejammert, Klimaschutzmaßnahmen seien zu teuer und Deutschland könne ja die Welt nicht retten.
Nein, kann es nicht, aber mit allen anderen zusammen kann das schlimmste mögliche verhindert werden.
Why not just lead the way? To stumble out of the blocks - criticizing progression and innovation along the way - then embrace forward thinking ideals in the last furlong is Texas-sized exhausting.
Your average Texas pick up truck yahoo hates to admit this ironic fact, but around the I-10 and I-20 junction near Pecos in the middle of the Texas Oil Patch, there have been way more wind turbines than oil derricks visible for years now.
Sunshine is free.
What do you call a solar spill?
A nice day.
Texas has abundant sunshine. Intense. Hot. Especially during the extremely hot summer months. Really cranks up the MWs from all of those solar panels.
This just is as much an indictment of ERCOT as it is a anything else. People knew they could not count on the existing power system in Texas to not fail and then charge them horrific bills as they fail.
Well they're gonna need some way to power all the cameras they're going to need to monitor women's movements in case there's an undeclared pregnancy the state needs to interfere with.
