Texas Sets New Power Record During Summer Heat Wave

As temperatures reached triple-digits across the state Wednesday, the Texas power grid set a new record, providing more than 91 gigawatts of power, with more than 20 gigawatts in reserves.

Why does this matter?

Following repeat grid failures in recent years, Texas enacted legislation meant to improve the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid. As the grid pushes itself during this summer's heatwave, setting new records shows the strength of the new system protections.

What are people saying?

• Gov. Abbott: "The Texas grid has never been stronger."

Statewide temperatures reached above 100 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, with North Texas seeing temps up to 108.

The temperatures tested the ERCOT grid, requiring over 91 gigawatts of power, setting a new record for the systems.

"Texas is #1 for electric power. We provide more than the 2nd & 3rd states combined," Gov. Abbott wrote on X.

At Wednesday's peak, 47% of energy was powered by natural gas and 33.1% by solar. Coal and lignite made up another 10.5%, nuclear 5.5% and wind 4.5%, according to ERCOT.

The abundance of energy in the state of Texas reflects legislation passed in recent years to improve repeat grid failures. Now, the Texas grid is operating with over 17 milliwatts in operating reserves at the time this story was published.

Additionally, the grid has seen less than 20,000 milliwatts in generation outages at a time over the past six days. However, majority of the outages are forced outages.

The Texas power grid will only be tested more in the coming days, as temperatures are forecasted to maintain in the triple digits throughout next week.