[VintageCool]

The Texas grid has been buckling because of extreme weather events and rapidly increasing load. Texas broke electricity demand records 11 times last summer [2022] and 9 times this summer.

The rapid deployment of renewables and grid-scale batteries is saving the Texas grid from brownouts and blackouts.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-hits-record...

Grid-scale batteries have also been saving California from blackouts. Back in 2020, the California grid wasn't able to handle the peak demand of 46.8 GW during a heat wave and resulted in blackouts. But in 2022, thanks to the rapid deployment of several GW of additional batteries, California weathered a peak of 51.4 GW without issue.

https://www.icf.com/insights/energy/battery-energy-storage-b...

[teaearlgraycold]

GW hours of batteries you mean?

[Gibbon1]

California's utility batteries can supply 5GW for a few hours. In the morning today they were charging at about 2.8GW and then early evening output peaked at 3.5GW.

They're basically competing with natural gas peaking plants. You could argue they're buying natural gas power in the morning for cheap and selling it in the early evening when it's expensive.