Facing Brutal Heat, the Texas Electric Grid Has a New Ally: ‌Solar Power

Last month, the Texas Legislature passed a new $10 billion program mostly to incentivize the construction of new natural gas power plants. The sum includes $1.8 billion for local hospitals and other critical services to purchase backup power generators, a provision originally proposed by Mr. Johnson.

Republicans also advanced legislation that would have increased costs and regulation for renewable energy producers, including new fees for transmission and ancillary services as well as new permitting requirements and rules about where projects could be located.

The legislation failed — but only at the last minute, and not before raising concerns within the industry.

“It’s a huge irony,” said John Berger, the chief executive of Sunnova Energy, a residential solar power and battery company based in Houston. “The growth of wind and solar is because Texas is more capitalistic than many other states,” he said, “so the response from the so-called capitalists in Austin was socialism — having the state invest $10 billion” in natural gas.

“It’s blatant protectionism and it’s not what made Texas great,” he added.

Texas still trails California in the amount of solar power on the roofs of homes. But in the growth of solar farms, it has been rapidly outstripping the Golden State.

Outside Houston, in Fort Bend County, there are now six large solar farms, up from one in 2020.

“It’s being commissioned as we speak,” Joaquin Castillo, the chief executive of Acciona Energy North America, said of the company’s new 1,500-acre solar farm in Fort Bend, which is set to switch on this summer. “Texas historically has shown a strong commitment to a free market,” Mr. Castillo said. “And it’s a fast-growing market in terms of demand.”

The change has been rapid and notable, particularly in rural West Texas, where voters are often conservative, usually supportive of oil and gas development — and increasingly benefiting from the spread of solar power.