91,000 MWs is an impressive number. We cleared it last Wednesday(7/22) and would have done so again on Thursday if not for TS Bertha. We should anticipate more of the same this week but it is not the end of the world it once would have been. Solar has contributed as much as a third of that peak total even as wind has retreated in the afternoon hours. And at night, wind is loading up more than 20 GWs of energy storage capacity to help cover that afternoon demand.
While it may feel cobbled together, it’s an attractive mix of balancing supply on top of a base of almost half of our electric requirements (a little over 48%) being met by natural gas generation in an uncharacteristically soft summer market. Things may get a little tighter as we move into August, with at least a couple of long hot Texas summer weeks in front of us, but we have yet to push that market premium into any sustained period of costly market settlements.
If we can keep it up, it could make Texas summer pricing a little easier to bear for 2027.
