A new analysis of Texas data by Quaise Energy investigates the issues of heavily relying on wind and solar energy
Texas is a bellwether of the energy transition. The oil and gas capital also leads the United States in renewable energy generation, driven primarily by the buildout of wind turbines. However, allowing intermittent sources like wind and solar to dominate the grid would have profound consequences.
The Quaise ERCOT Analysis, an investigation of 2022 and 2023 data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), examines what the grid would look like without fossil fuels. The analysis focuses on systematically expanding wind, solar, and energy storage while maintaining nuclear operations, resulting in more infrastructure generating less efficient energy on vastly more land.
Electricity is so essential to modern life that most nations will only accept 2-3 hours per year of unplanned outages. That means electricity must be available and reliable for 99.97% of the year. However, meeting such high standards with wind and solar would become a rising challenge.
The heart of the issue for wind and solar is intermittency, meaning they only generate power when the conditions are right. On average, solar produces full power 25% of the time, whereas wind does so 35% of the time. To make intermittent sources more reliable, you need to generate and store much more energy than is typically needed.
For example, simply meeting average annual demand would be a heavy lift. The Quaise ERCOT Analysis finds that Texas would need to scale up its wind and solar capacity by 3.4x and energy storage by a whopping 42.4x to meet average annual demand without fossil fuels. But that’s only looking at the averages, which amount to just 76% reliability and wouldn’t be enough to supply the grid all year long. It’s a helpful benchmark, though, when compared to full reliability.
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It would take decades to build out 20x the number of solar panels and wind turbines already deployed across the state.
Remember, 99.97% annual reliability is the gold standard. To meet that high bar, Texas would need to scale up energy storage, such as large-scale batteries, by 43x, not far off from the average demand need. Notably, much of that storage would sit idle throughout the year. It’s mostly an insurance policy when sunshine and wind levels crater over long periods or demand spikes.
But coupled with storage is capacity. The state’s installed solar and wind capacity would have to soar by 20x to achieve 99.97% reliability, in tandem with the 43x storage expansion. Looking at installations in Texas over time, it would take decades to build out 20x the number of solar panels and wind turbines already deployed across the state.
And all that capacity has to be built somewhere. The Quaise ERCOT Analysis estimates that just meeting the average annual demand, with a 3.4x capacity expansion, would require more than 50,000 km2 of land. That’s equivalent to the size of Lake Michigan. It’s not even clear if Texas has that much space available for development. Plus, the analysis doesn’t factor in extra land needed for storage and transmission, which will only balloon the figure.
The high cost of overbuilding capacity and energy storage begs the question: are intermittent energy sources really the best solution? There is a better path forward to achieve energy dominance, and it starts with clean, firm power at the foundation. That means centering the global energy supply around sources like nuclear and geothermal, which can operate at all hours of the day while using less land.
Geothermal can progress rapidly in Texas. The established base of the oil and gas industry provides the state with infrastructure and a workforce well-versed in skills that are transferable to geothermal. Plus, Texas has access to ideal temperatures at relatively shallow depths. All of this means Texas could generate reliable, renewable power for the whole state by focusing on geothermal. And as millimeter wave drilling technology matures, more states and nations can do the same.
Texas offers a glimpse of what the future holds if we continue down the current energy transition track. Renewable energy is not an end in itself; energy must be reliable and powerful to support modern life and the growing demands of future generations. A prosperous energy future starts with a robust and reliable foundation.
Energy is everything. At Quaise, we look at the big picture to see where the world is and where it needs to go. Today, fossil fuels still dominate global energy by a long shot. A smoother transition to clean energy requires a bold new vision grounded in science, scale, and speed. Join us as we explore the future of energy and the power of deep geothermal.