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Summer 2024 Was One for the Power Grid History Books
Grid operators in several regions kept the lights on this summer with more solar, storage, and wind.
A look inside the control room of ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, reveals the complex operations behind managing the state’s power grid. “In summer 2024, grid operators in all regions maintained enough capacity to keep the lights on during periods of peak demand, even as they retired older generators, and an increasing number of regions used more solar and storage to meet peak demand,” said Paul Denholm, senior research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The solar output also shifted the period of highest risk of outage from the afternoon to later in the evening (around 8 p.m.) and shortened the net peak demand period—when other resources need to contribute—to only a few hours.
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