Texas Battery Storage Surges to 14 GW as Solar Permanently Eclipses Coal
The ERCOT grid has officially reached 14 gigawatts (GW) of battery storage capacity in early 2026, nearly doubling the 7.8 GW installed at the start of 2025. This historic battery boom coincides with another major milestone: solar energy generated more electricity than coal in Texas for the first time over a full calendar year (2025), providing 14% of ERCOT's power compared to coal's 13%. This fundamental reshaping of the supply mix is racing against unprecedented load growth, with projected peak demand soaring toward 217 GW by 2030.
Executive Impact — C&I Buyers
- →Flattening the Duck Curve: The massive influx of 14 GW of batteries effectively captures cheap midday solar and discharges it during the precarious dusk hours. This limits the extreme volatility previously seen between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM during summer peaks, stabilizing wholesale prices for index buyers.
- →Ancillary Services Revaluation: As utility-scale batteries flood the ERCOT ancillary services market (ECRS, Reg-Up), clearing prices for these services are compressing. This lowers the ancillary cost portion on commercial electricity bills but reduces revenue for traditional peaker plants.
- →The 217 GW Problem: While supply is shifting, demand is exploding. With ERCOT forecasting a staggering 217 GW peak load by 2030 (up from 89 GW in 2025) due to data centers and crypto mining, the grid is in a high-stakes race between new storage deployment and massive load additions.
Battery Dominance: From Niche to Necessity
Just five years ago, utility-scale battery storage in Texas was considered an experimental footnote. Today, it is the primary shock absorber keeping the ERCOT grid online. The state is now on track to permanently surpass California as the nation's leader in energy storage capacity.
The speed of deployment is breathtaking. ERCOT grid planners reported 7.8 GW of storage at the beginning of 2025. Just 13 months later, in February 2026, that figure has nearly doubled to 14 GW. This includes innovative new facilities, such as the 24 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery plant in Bexar County that actively repurposes used electric vehicle (EV) batteries to bolster grid resilience. These systems were widely credited for preventing rolling blackouts during recent winter weather events like Winter Storm Fern.
Solar Decisively Eclipses Coal
For the first time in the history of the Texas grid, solar generation beat coal over a full 12-month calendar year. In 2025, solar energy provided approximately 14% of ERCOT's total power, edging out coal which dropped just below 13%.
This is not driven by state renewable mandates, but by brutal, deregulated market economics: wind, solar, and batteries have been the dominant new supply additions from 2021-2025 simply because they represent the cheapest marginal cost of energy and possess the fastest "speed to market" for developers. Solar is expected to account for the absolute majority of all new capacity additions in 2026.
The Demand Side: An Approaching 217 GW Tsunami
While the supply-side evolution is impressive, it is constantly chasing a moving target. At the February 2026 ERCOT Market Summit, planners sounded the alarm regarding the sheer velocity of incoming load.
Driven by the construction of massive AI data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, and the electrification of Permian Basin oil and gas infrastructure, ERCOT's projected peak load has been revised sharply upward. Planners now forecast the grid could face a peak load of 217 GW by 2030—an astronomical jump from the 89 GW peak experienced in 2025.
Commercial Procurement Strategy Implications
- Expect Changes to Transmission Planning: A recent report graded ERCOT with a "D-" for its power grid planning efficiency. The rapid construction of data centers is currently outpacing the development of new power plants and transmission lines, prompting ERCOT to urgently revise its "Large Load" interconnection rules. Expect higher localized delivery costs in hyper-growth zones.
- Opportunity in VPPs: As traditional peaking plants retire, ERCOT is leaning harder into Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). Commercial facilities with onsite generation, batteries, or highly flexible curtailable load will see increasing opportunities to monetize those assets.
- Index Product Viability: The "Duck Curve" previously made real-time index products highly perilous for C&I buyers due to evening price spikes. With 14 GW of batteries now shaving the peak off those spikes, actively managed index products combined with hedging blocks are becoming mathematically safer in ERCOT.
Connected Analysis
For details on how ERCOT is actively managing this transformation, see our coverage of the ERCOT Virtual Power Plant Expansion. To understand the localized rate impacts, review the latest Oncor Commercial Delivery Rate Changes.
Source: ERCOT Market Summit 2026 transcripts, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), KilowattLogic Data Lake.