How solar is changing the Texas grid

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With the summer’s hottest months ahead, curtailment in Texas is about to heat. But Luxor’s Haley Thomson said that the dynamics for ERCOT have rapidly changed amid solar rollouts, leading officials to rethink how they approach ERCOT’s 4CP program. “But now a lot has changed. So Texas has an unbelievable amount of solar build out. There's a few reasons why they're looking or redesigning the program. One is that you could argue that when the grid is the most stressed it doesn't actually have anything to do with peak demand. “It might have more to do with renewables or solar because that is you know that you get all this congestion, and so that one discussion is to shift it away from absolute peak and start looking at net load.” And what’s more, with solar and battery rollouts juicing MWs with the summer sun, the 4CP program may be less useful in summer than the winter months, when solar is much less effective. “ERCOT is flipping more and more to a winter peaking market … This is kind of when the grid is quite stressed if you get these winter storms and polar vortexes." 🎧Catch the latest episode of 'The Blockspace Pod,’ in partnership with Blockspace Media! 📺 Watch: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZBo-pYEI9lyjxoojq_X8MA?sub_confirmation=1 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2jyIhkvAQhed8AWDZiPpSP 🎧 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coindesk-podcast-network/id1414384043