Why is it always right wingers that are introducing these unreasonable ideas?
But the quote is from the article, not from the headline.
It seems like you’re confidently asserting something demonstrably false.
A better title: "Texas Senate passes bill requiring renewables to designate backup power to reduce their volatility"
I also clicked on the references given in the article, and they don't exactly say what the article claims.
For example: "A study by the Texas Association of Business (TAB) found that the legislation would cost the state $5.2 billion more per year — and cost individual consumers $225 more."
That's not what the link says, the link says that reducing the growth of renewables would do that. The article pretends that this legislation would reduce renewables, but it does not actually prove that claim.
The Hill usually has higher quality work, this article is garbage.
Are you new to Politics or something?
Demand is lower at night anyway and forces these plants to invest in appropriate energy storage solutions. If we leave this problem up to the rest of the grid we will have even bigger political fights.
There has been no conclusive post mortem, the issue is still under investigation[1], this is a blog post by a tech company, not an authoritative agency with findings, basically speculation being used as a marketing article...
This article[2] also calls out the rumor mill about renewables being a cause:
> Political groups such as the far-right VOX – which has historically pushed back against climate action such as the expansion of renewables – also pointed to the blackout as evidence of “the importance of a balanced energy mix”.
> However, others rejected this suggestion, with EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen telling Bloomberg that the blackout could not be pinned on a “specific source of energy”:
> “As far as we know, there was nothing unusual about the sources of energy supplying electricity to the system yesterday. So the causes of the blackout cannot be reduced to a specific source of energy, for instance renewables.”
> Others have sought to highlight that, while it was possible solar power was involved in the initial frequency event, this does not mean that it was ultimately the cause of the blackout.
It's all inconclusive and the narrative that solar is the culprit is being pushed by anti-renewables, let's wait until there's an official conclusion to the investigation instead of peddling bullshit.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43970583
[1] https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2025/05/01/iberian-black-out-ents...
[2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-ab...
>> If passed by the House, state S.B. 715 would require all renewable projects — even existing ones — to buy backup power, largely from coal or gas plants.
If it compelled the renewable projects to buy from a coal plant, that might be an issue. But if the choice is buy from a coal plant OR invest in storage so that the amoutn of energy delivered can be consistent across the day, that’s probably a great outcome.
Batteries would allow solar plants to provide power when the sun doesn't shine. And those are of course already being deployed in record numbers on the grid and very popular in combination with wind and solar setups. Any surplus of battery capacity would weaken the business case for operating gas plants and push those into the role of peaker plants.
Australia is a good benchmark of what that looks like. Several of their states run on solar and battery most of the time with coal/gas plants only switching on occasionally now.
Make a law demanding more power → power demand grows rapidly → new power supply is required here and now → companies prioritise whatever power source gets them there faster.
I guess the reason for this bill is stability of the grid. I'm not saying if this makes this bill good or bad, I'm not enough of an expert into electrical grids.
The original bill: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/pdf/SB00715S....
Sounds quite dirigiste to me. Cf Germany, which allows separate operators to connect batteries to the grid (and there's a stampede). The battery operators plan to buy cheap wind power at night or cheap sun at midday, and they are not constrained to use one source of power the way Texas requires.
Due to several factors such as surging demand from AI data centers and manufacturers operating at full capacity, there is a natural gas turbine shortage. Without a natural gas turbine, you can’t add a solar farm to the grid. AND, without enough new gas turbines, Texas may be reluctant to add large, predominant scale solar because they can't guarantee reliability during low solar output.
So adding a battery backup requirement or use of natural gas for example may seem counter intuitive but Texas has a duty to provide reliable and redundant power to its customers
The outage had nothing to do with solar though, no idea why you brought it up.
“ Two sudden disconnections at solar generation sites in southwestern Spain triggered a rapid frequency drop. Historically, fossil fuel plants would have provided inertia to dampen the swing and limit disruption. But that day, renewables made up nearly 80% of supply. The energy feeding the grid was clean, but inflexible.”
Texas has chosen to add a non renewable backup option as a reasonable choice. The article there advocates for a complex battery option that is more decentralized from the main power grid. That’s one option but it requires deploying millions of dollars in batteries and things like natural gas turbines simply perform better with today’s technology in these situations.
This article [1] also calls out the rumor mill about renewables being a cause:
> Political groups such as the far-right VOX – which has historically pushed back against climate action such as the expansion of renewables – also pointed to the blackout as evidence of “the importance of a balanced energy mix”.
> However, others rejected this suggestion, with EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen telling Bloomberg that the blackout could not be pinned on a “specific source of energy”:
> “As far as we know, there was nothing unusual about the sources of energy supplying electricity to the system yesterday. So the causes of the blackout cannot be reduced to a specific source of energy, for instance renewables.”
> Others have sought to highlight that, while it was possible solar power was involved in the initial frequency event, this does not mean that it was ultimately the cause of the blackout.
It's all inconclusive and the narrative that solar is the culprit is being pushed by anti-renewables, let's wait until there's an official conclusion to the investigation instead of peddling bullshit.
[0] https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2025/05/01/iberian-black-out-ents...
[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-ab...
energy123•3h ago