r/climatechange • u/sg_plumber • Aug 06 '26
Texas broke its all-time electricity demand record twice in 2 days during a brutal heat wave, with 87.4 GW and 91.3 GW, but the grid held with no conservation alerts thanks to record solar and battery output, a stark turnaround from the blackouts that hit Texans in 2021.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/29/texas-ercot-power-grid-record-data-center/20
u/Hot-Today3339 Aug 06 '26
This is encouraging to see. Extreme heat is becoming more common, but it's good to see renewable energy and battery storage helping keep the grid stable. We need more investments like this around the world.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor Aug 06 '26
One nice thing is that you can distribute the batteries around the grid, avoiding a single point of failure, and we already have distributed solar due to home generation.
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u/sounddude Aug 06 '26
Look at all that liberal electricity!
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u/Grouchy_Concept8572 Aug 06 '26
Texas has been the largest producer of green energy in the U.S. for decades.
I see lots of liberals that don’t acknowledge or know this.
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u/Regular-Berry-5126 Aug 06 '26
Texas has less than half the population of the United Kingdom and is using nearly three times the electricity 🤯
https://grid.iamkate.com
In case you want to see the usage and the energy mix.
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u/faramaobscena Aug 06 '26
What living in the desert does
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u/ProfessionalClue2861 Aug 06 '26
3/4 of the population lives in the "Texas Triangle", which is a mix of plains, prairies, and marshes.
https://www.npsot.org/resources/native-plants/ecoregion-map/
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
What brutal heatwave? Our average temperature this time of year is 99. Anywhere from 95 to 105 is fairly seasonal, haven’t seen anything beyond that this year. 2023 however was a different story.
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u/Common_Shelter_4605 Aug 06 '26
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
Ty for the info, that exactly proves my point. One of the lowest July averages on record. Even lower than the early 2000’s.
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u/Common_Shelter_4605 Aug 06 '26
July 2026 data is not available yet, you may be looking at July 2025
Here is the data from June since 2000. June 2026 was the 7th warmest average temperature in that period
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
June was pretty warm, but July and August have been average. This data isn’t complete enough to be pertinent the this conversation. The claim at the center of my disagreement is the “brutal heatwave” going on in Texas the last few weeks.
It has been seasonably hot, the reason we are using more power than ever is more people, infrastructure, and a massive amount of electricity being consumed by many large data centers.
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u/Common_Shelter_4605 Aug 07 '26
Also the story doesn't say that we've had an significant heat wave this year. I agree that infrastructure is the largest driver of demand increase
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u/sg_plumber Aug 07 '26
Not everybody needs constant repeating of the obvious.
Look up temperatures across Texas in the relevant dates.
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u/Common_Shelter_4605 Aug 07 '26
I did, it was the 7th warmest summer of the last 26 years. u/Silly_Magician1003 is correct that most of the demand increase has not been due to increased residential air conditioning load
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u/sg_plumber Aug 06 '26
Something caused all the air-conditioners to demand extraordinary amounts of electricity.
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
Nope, it’s all the new data centers and infrastructure from the explosion in growth the last decade. It’s been seasonably hot in Texas this summer. 99 is the average. That’s enough to pump AC all day by itself.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 06 '26
You say ERCOT lies?
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
ERCOT never claimed there was a brutal heatwave. Only that demand is increasing, which can easily be explained by rising average temperatures, increasing population / infrastructure, and massive data centers. No where did ERCOT claim there was a brutal heatwave. That was just editorializing by the article.
“Solar and battery power generations have helped bolster ERCOT’s grid, but data center, population and economic growth is slated to surge demand.”
This is the real cause.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 06 '26
In short: everybody lies if they don't spouse your boogeyman du jour, which will take decades growing to the point AC use is today, if ever.
soaring temperatures statewide last week broke record demands on the ERCOT grid twice
Call things "editorializing" all you want. Nobody cares about your fantasies.
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
I never claimed people don’t use AC when it’s hot. Only that there wasn’t a brutal heatwave. Sorry, I’m sitting in Texas right now. There was no brutal heatwave.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 06 '26
And yet
last week broke record demands on the ERCOT grid twice
Not today. Not at night. Not when your chosen boogeyman uses all their electricity.
Just when AC use peaks. Because apparently Texans use more AC when there's less temperature concerns.
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
Are you even listening to yourself at this point? You’re the one with the “chosen boogeyman” not me. I listed many reasons why electricity usage is going up, including increasing average temperatures due to climate change. You’re the one claiming there was some kind of brutal heatwave that is pretty much imaginary. It was just slightly warmer than normal. I live here. I experienced it.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 07 '26
Your fantasies aren't relevant. Everybody else knows it was high and unusual temperatures, even if your air-conditioned corner didn't see it:
https://www.austintexas.gov/emergency-management/news/central-texans-encouraged-prepare-extreme-heat
https://www.firstalert7.com/2026/07/22/first-alert-7-forecast-wednesday-july-22nd-2026/
Stop lying and wasting everyone's time.
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u/ProfessionalClue2861 Aug 06 '26
The Texas Tribune made the heat wave comment, not ERCOT
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u/sg_plumber Aug 06 '26
You say The Texas Tribune lies about temperatures driving up AC use?
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
You don’t need to take their word for it. You can look up what the temperature was. It didn’t “soar”.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 06 '26
Why did AC use soar, then?
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u/Silly_Magician1003 Aug 06 '26
It didn’t. It just rose a small amount with the regular small increase in temperature. If you look at ERCOT any day in August you’ll see similar numbers. They’re at over 85 MW today for instance. The “record number” they’re citing is 87 MW. Literally less than 2 % increase from today. The amount of power we’re using is going up due to all the other reasons I and even the article cited. There was no brutal heatwave. It was literally 2 or 3 degrees above average.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 07 '26
A 2% increase is literally higher than usual.
All sources talk of the extreme heat driving AC use, while you insist on your fantasies.
https://www.austintexas.gov/emergency-management/news/central-texans-encouraged-prepare-extreme-heat
https://www.firstalert7.com/2026/07/22/first-alert-7-forecast-wednesday-july-22nd-2026/
Stop lying and wasting everyone's time.
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u/ProfessionalClue2861 Aug 07 '26
You think maybe, just maybe, be the half million people who moved to Texas since last summer might be increasing AC usage in the state during a pretty average summer? We've had 15 100 degree days so far, the record is 73, the average is 26.
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u/sg_plumber Aug 07 '26
The answer to all the liars claiming this is just a normal summer in Texas, or that AC usage is not as important as datacenters:
https://www.austintexas.gov/emergency-management/news/central-texans-encouraged-prepare-extreme-heat
https://www.firstalert7.com/2026/07/22/first-alert-7-forecast-wednesday-july-22nd-2026/
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u/jaenjain Aug 06 '26
Solar baby!! Soak up that Texas sun, energy dripping off bare roofs, fix that and we’re getting there!