The huge batteries helping to power Texas. They may also be keeping your electric bill lower.

By: Jason Wheeler

Battery storage for electricity in Texas has been soaring, and much more is on the way.

DALLAS — In February, it may have felt like you had heated your home in January with burning piles of cash. Many Texans were confronted with soaring electric bills after our extended time encased in the January deep freeze. 

Compare Power notes that about 60% of Texas homes use electricity as their primary heating source. As we have discussed before, when we plunge below and well-below freezing, often the auxiliary or emergency heat kicks on. 

That’s those heat strips in your air handler enhance your heating system. When they crank up, your electric consumption and your electric bill can go way up. If your frustration level is also up because of last month’s electric bill, let’s cool down a bit and just be thankful…for batteries. Lots of batteries.

Cleanview Founder and CEO Michael Thomas says, “What happened in really just the last one to two years is there was this incredible buildout of solar and batteries in Texas… bigger than almost anything other than China in the world, probably. And what that did was it brought online a huge supply of energy.”

Cleanview tracks large-scale wind, solar, and battery storage projects. 

Thomas says Texas has been kind of off the charts, “Yeah, it always shocks me. Texas is actually kind of a problem in some of my work because I make charts a lot and share those charts. What happens whenever I make one of these charts is that there's a massive line with Texas, and how much solar they're building…or batteries they're building…or wind. And then all of the other states are kind of squeezed below.”

State officials say batteries have helped stabilize the grid by kicking in power when supplies are tight. And even though it may not feel like it with last month’s electric bill, the state also touts that battery farms reduce energy costs. They can be charged when supply is plentiful and cheap and then drained when supply gets scarce and more costly. 

So during weather events that create big electricity demand, they can help keep rising prices from shooting higher. Predictions are that this year, next year, and the year after that, new battery storage projects will be a major force, accounting for one of the biggest expansions of electricity supply here. 

Already, just excluding California, Texas has boasted more battery storage than the rest of the U.S. combined. It’s one of the fastest expanding power sources here, in a state that’s getting a lot more electricity–and quickly. 

Thomas says, “We found that it takes about three years from planning to final construction to build a power project in Texas. In California, by comparison, a state that's really trying to transition and build a lot of this stuff, there's a ton of interest from policymakers and incentives. In that state, it takes twice the time. It takes about six to seven years. There are some projects in California that we track that have been planned since George W. Bush was president in 2004…and are still not built.”