Austin Vernon on utilities (from my email)

I agree with the anonymous email, and I’ve written about customers going off-grid or doing microgrids because I think customers will find them more appealing than existing utilities. It seems obvious that a lot of data centers will directly source their power. It’s not insurmountable now that there is a robust industry of independent power producers and financiers. Also, it is easier to build a reliable system with today’s power plants, batteries, etc. The days of 60% capacity factor nuclear and coal plants are over.

And in these news articles, like the WAPO one, people like to lump Texas in with these other places without mentioning they’ve already been seeing load growth and are handling it well so far. Texas will add more grid batteries this year than the entire US did in 2023. ERCOT set peak demand records last year at 85 GW (up from 80 GW in 2022 and just 69 GW in 2018), so their adding 6 GW/~12 GWh of batteries this year is pretty substantial, on top of 12 GW of utility-scale solar, etc.

I suspect it will soon be undeniable that a relatively freewheeling energy-only market with competitive bidding for new transmission is the way to go. And that the staid vertical utilities and subpar regulations are a liability for the rest of the Sunbelt and the coasts.