The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which is responsible for the electric grid in the Lone Star State had tough news for proponents of wind energy. ERCOT data shows that wind generation in Texas is down almost 6% in the first six months of 2023. According to the Houston Chronicle, even as wind generation tailed off this summer, June's extreme heat "drove Houston's monthly average temperature for June to 85.1 degrees or 2.1 above normal." The temperature tied with June 1980 as the sixth hottest on record.
Longtime Texas energy analyst Bill Peacock of the Energy Alliance published a report that said that Texas has a glut of renewable energy sources and is relying too much on them for energy.
"The lack of diversity that has resulted from this overreliance on renewables has come at a great cost to Texas," Peacock said in the report. “Wall Street bankers and investment firms have partnered up with renewable energy companies from all over the world to chase the billions of dollars available if the companies will pick this form of energy favored by politicians and bureaucrats across the globe—including the state of Texas.”
Peacock would continue and state that the growth of wind generation in Texas is largely due to subsidies. Peacocks says that Texas politicians "have partnered with the politicians in Washington D.C. to give more than $26 billion of taxpayer money and other benefits to renewable generators operating in Texas. About $12 billion of that came from the federal government, $10 billion from the state, and $1.5 billion from local government."
According to energy expert Robert Bryce, wind generation has grown rapidly because "about $66 billion was spent building wind and solar infrastructure in Texas" in recent years.
In ERCOT's own report, which can be found here, the organization said that the problem with reliance on wind energy to maintain grid reliability, particularly during the summer. Though wind generation averaged 10,589-gigawatt hours through the first four months of the year, peaking at 11,070 gigawatt-hours in March, it has dropped significantly as the temperatures have climbed. In May and June, wind averaged only 7,806-gigawatt hours.
While wind energy production is down, natural gas production has risen to compensate. ERCOT reports that electricity from natural gas was up almost 12 percent this year.