The Texas Reliability Entity (Texas RE) has released its 2024 Reliability Performance and Regional Risk Assessment, and the message is clear: despite record-breaking electricity demand, a rapidly evolving resource mix, and an unprecedented surge in data center and industrial load growth, the Texas grid is holding strong—thanks in large part to the contributions of renewable energy and battery storage.
Here’s what the numbers show:
Renewable energy served 34.8% of Texas’ total electricity demand in 2024. Solar generation rose by 996% and battery storage by 2,617% over the past five years . Battery storage injected over 4,000 MW during critical evening ramp hours, helping prevent outages and stabilize frequency . Grid reliability remained strong, with no Energy Emergency Alerts triggered in 2024 despite extreme weather and record peaks .
The report underscores that modernizing our electric system with clean, flexible resources isn’t just an environmental win—it’s a reliability and economic necessity.
Texas is projected to add more than 49 GW of renewable and storage capacity by the end of 2027, a critical investment as we prepare for over 70 GW of potential new large load from data centers, crypto operations, and oil and gas facilities. Without this forward-thinking buildout, the system’s reserve margins could turn negative in the coming years—posing risks to reliability if we don’t act decisively.
Battery storage, in particular, is proving its value in real time. The report documents significant improvements in primary frequency response, with batteries outperforming traditional fossil units in both speed and precision. These resources are stepping in where aging coal and gas plants are retiring, and they’re doing it with greater efficiency and lower emissions.
We’re also seeing meaningful progress in hardening the grid against extreme weather, with winterization efforts helping generators perform reliably through Winter Storm Heather in January 2024.
This report should serve as a wake-up call to policymakers and regulators: renewables and storage are not only working—they’re indispensable to Texas’ energy future. We should stop treating them as a threat and start investing in them as the backbone of our grid.
At the Advanced Power Alliance, we’re proud to represent the companies building that future. This report confirms what we’ve long known: a modern grid powered by renewables and storage is a reliable, resilient, and cost-effective grid for Texas.