Solar Power Surging in Texas With One-Third of U.S. Projects

摘要

Solar power is booming in Texas, where installations are expected to swell by 15 gigawatts through the end of next year.The state will add 10 gigawatts of utility-scale solar farms in 2021 and 2022, about one-third of the total U.S. installations, according to Energy Department data released Tuesday. Bycomparison, conventional nuclear reactors typically have about 1 gigawatt of capacity, or enough to power about 190,000 U.S. homes.The growth in solar comes after a record-breaking cold snap in February knocked out about half of Texas’s generating capacity, raising questions about the reliability of renewables. Whilesome initial reports blamed the outages on wind farms that went down with icy blades, the bigger culprit was natural gas facilities that couldn’t operate in the bitter cold or lackedadequate supplies after pipelines froze over.