Daily Caller Piece: Wind and Solar Keep Failing Texans at the Worst Possible Times

[Note: This story is also published at The Daily Caller]

Back in June, after Texas power grid managers at ERCOT had come perilously close on June 20 to lacking sufficient available generation capacity on an especially hot day, the nation’s legacy news platforms coordinated a narrative claiming that “solar and batteries saved the day” for Texas power users. The narrative contended that, were it not for all the solar and backup battery additions to the Texas grid in recent years, ERCOT may have needed to implement rolling blackouts after a pair of natural gas facilities unexpectedly went offline during the day.

There was some truth to that narrative. There is no question, for example, that most of the generation additions to the Texas grid in recent years have consisted of solar, as Texas power generators continue their decade-long refusal to build adequate dispatchable thermal generation. As well, the inventory of stationary backup installations continues to expand, although its role in “saving the day” was ridiculously overstated in the embarrassing media stories about that day. (RELATED: DAWN BUCKINGHAM: Can Texas Stop Biden From Building A Massive Wind Farm Off Its Coast?)