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Texas plugs in among states at highest risk for summer power outages in 2025

by the numbers

A new study puts Texas at No. 2 among the states most at risk for power outages this summer. Photo via Getty Images

Warning: Houston could be in for an especially uncomfortable summer.

A new study from solar energy company Wolf River Electric puts Texas at No. 2 among the states most at risk for power outages this summer. Michigan tops the list.

Wolf River Electric analyzed the number of large-scale outages that left more than 5,000 utility customers, including homes, stores and schools, without summertime electricity from 2019 to 2023. During that period, Texas experienced 7,164 summertime power outages.

Despite Michigan being hit with more summertime outages, Texas led the list of states with the most hours of summertime power outages — an annual average of 35,440. That works out to 1,477 days. “This means power cuts in Texas tend to last longer, making summer especially tough for residents and businesses,” the study says.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the electric grid serving 90 percent of the state, predicts its system will set a monthly record for peak demand this August — 85,759 megawatts. That would exceed the current record of 85,508 megawatts, dating back to August 2023.

In 2025, natural gas will account for 37.7 percent of ERCOT’s summertime power-generating capacity, followed by wind (22.9 percent) and solar (19 percent), according to an ERCOT fact sheet.

This year, ERCOT expects four months to surpass peak demand of 80,000 megawatts:

  • June 2025 — 82,243 megawatts
  • July 2025 — 84,103 megawatts
  • August 2025 — 85,759 megawatts
  • September 2025 — 80,773 megawatts

One megawatt is enough power to serve about 250 residential customers amid peak demand, according to ERCOT. Using that figure, the projected peak of 85,759 megawatts in August would supply enough power to serve more than 21.4 million residential customers in Texas.

Data centers, artificial intelligence and population growth are driving up power demand in Texas, straining the ERCOT grid. In January, ERCOT laid out a nearly $33 billion plan to boost power transmission capabilities in its service area.
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The Woodlands-based Lancium has licensed patents to ERCOT that help increase or decrease power consumption during peak periods or emergencies. Photo courtesy of ERCOT

Woodlands company licenses free patents to ERCOT to boost grid reliability

grid deal

Lancium, a company based in The Woodlands that specializes in infrastructure for connecting large-scale data centers to power grids, is licensing a portfolio of patents to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) at no cost.

In a news release, Lancium says the intellectual property agreement “ensures ERCOT can sublicense these patents freely, thereby expanding market participation opportunities without risk of patent infringement disputes.”

“This agreement exemplifies Lancium’s dedication to supporting grid stability and innovation across the ERCOT region,” Michael McNamara, CEO of Lancium, said in a news release. “While these patents represent significant technological advancements, we believe that enabling ERCOT and its market participants to operate freely is more valuable for the long-term reliability and resilience of the Texas grid.”

The licensed patents encompass Lancium technologies that support load resources in ERCOT’s market, which covers about 90 percent of Texas. Specifically, the patents deal with controllable load resources. A controlled load resource allows ERCOT and other grids to increase or decrease power consumption during peak periods or emergencies.

ERCOT predicts power demand in Texas will nearly double by 2030, “in part due to more requests to plug into the grid from large users like data centers, crypto mining facilities, hydrogen production plants, and oil and gas companies,” The Texas Tribune reported.

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TotalEnergies expands solar joint venture with $1.2B portfolio in Texas, Ohio

solar expansion

TotalEnergies, a French company whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, announced this month that it is expanding its renewable energy joint venture with New York-based investment firm KKR by adding 700 megawatts of utility-scale solar projects.

The deal will add three utility-scale solar assets in Texas and Ohio, which are expected to reach commercial operation by Q1 2027, according to a news release from the company. The portfolio is valued at $1.2 billion.

The 50/50 joint venture between TotalEnergies and KKR currently holds 1.4 gigawatts of renewable energy and will grow to 2.1 gigawatts.

The new deal is expected to close this year. Once completed, TotalEnergies will operate the assets. The electricity generated from the solar projects will be sold to third parties, the company reports.

The companies originally formed the joint venture about a year ago when TotalEnergies sold KKR a 50 percent stake in a North American solar portfolio valued at $1.25 billion. The deal originally included six utility-scale solar assets, primarily located in the U.S.

“TotalEnergies is a renewable energy industry leader globally, and we are thrilled to establish this joint venture with the TotalEnergies team to support their renewables business," Cecilio Velasco, managing director KKR, said in a release last year. “We have long been investors in renewables through our infrastructure platform, having committed more than $23 billion to date in energy transition investments. TotalEnergies’ North American solar portfolio is a great fit for us, representing high-quality renewable energy assets with long term contracts.”

TotalEnergies reports that by June 2026 it held more than 37 gigawatts of gross renewable power generation capacity. It aims to achieve over 100 terawatt-hours of net electricity production by 2030.

The company signed a major power purchase agreement with Google earlier this year. Through the deal, TotalEnergies will supply the tech giant with 1 gigawatt of solar power for its data centers in Texas over a 15-year span.

However, the company also recently redirected nearly $1 billion in capital away from wind energy projects and "decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States." Read more here.

Houston researchers develop compact carbon capture tech for data centers

AI emissions

Two scientists from the University of Houston have been experimenting with new carbon capture systems that fit inside a standard shipping container, which have the potential to make eliminating carbon output from industrial sites much easier.

The capture of industrial carbon is an important complement to the fight against climate change, as well as winning tax credits for businesses that use carbon capture technology.

The problem is that such systems are often measured in acres, making them expensive to build and extremely power-hungry to actually use. UH Engineering Professor Mim Rahimi and former UH Ph.D. student Ahmad Hassan (now a postdoctoral associate at Harvard) have managed to fit their new system, the Small Modular Electrochemical Container (SMECs), inside a standard 40-foot shipping crate, making them compact and modular enough to be installed almost anywhere for operations of all sizes. Their research was recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“With a conventional system, you’re building a 130-foot-tall structure designed for a specific power plant. With our technology, we can adjust the capacity by simply turning containers on or off,” Rahimi said in a news release. “That flexibility is particularly important for data centers, where electricity can come from a combination of natural gas and renewable sources.”

Rahimi and Hassan used simulated gas models to show that under optimal conditions, the SMEC used electrochemically mediated amine regeneration (EMAR) cells developed in Rahimi’s lab to capture 90 percent of carbon under optimal conditions through 300 cycles over 50 hours.

Encouraged, the team then modeled a 360-megawatt natural gas power plant associated with OpenAI’s Stargate AI data center project in Abilene, Texas. In addition to the savings on infrastructure costs, 20 of the researchers’ shipping container systems were able to capture 98 percent of carbon from Stargate’s 875-acre campus based on the model.

The looming energy costs and subsequent carbon emissions from data centers are a real concern. Estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy hypothesize that 12 percent of America’s energy needs could be gobbled up by the centers as soon as 2028. That is a massive new source of carbon. The flexibility of the SMEC means they can be deployed wherever the centers spring up.

“We’re taking a technology that traditionally requires enormous infrastructure and finding a way to fit it inside a shipping container,” Rahimi added in the release. “That opens up entirely new possibilities for how and where carbon capture systems can be used.”

In the future, the researchers say they plan to look at ways to adapt the technology to capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

Hertha Metals breaks ground on $100M high-purity iron factory in Conroe

coming soon

Shortly after announcing a $133.65 Series A funding round, Conroe-based Hertha Metals broke ground Oct. 8 on a $100 million factory that will produce steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron.

Hertha’s Chalyx plant, located in Conroe, will manufacture a total of about 10,000 metric tons per year of magnet-grade and steel-grade high-purity iron. The factory will use Hertha’s single-step process to generate high-purity iron for rare-earth-magnet and steel manufacturers in the U.S.

Hertha says Chalyx will be the first U.S. commercial plant for production of magnet-grade high-purity iron.

Chalyx is being built next to Hertha’s headquarters and its Pi100 pilot plant, which will remain in operation. Chalyx and Pi100 will form the first modern-day iron and steel “innovation complex” in the U.S., the company says.

“I founded Hertha Metals because I believed we could significantly improve how the world makes iron and steel from ore, and that an industry so fundamental to our future still had enormous room for invention,” Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha, said in a press release.

The 4-year-old startup says the Chalyx complex will lay the foundation for its first 500,000-ton-per-year steel mill.

Chalyx’s first priority is making high-purity iron for U.S. manufacturers of rare-earth magnets, Hertha says. These magnets are critical components for electric vehicles, data centers, wind turbines and defense systems.

China produces an estimated 94 percent of high-purity iron for rare-earth magnets, according to Hertha.

Aside from iron for rare-earth magnets, Chalyx will make iron and steel for pilot projects in the steel industry.

The plant is expected to come online in late 2027, with production of magnet-grade high-purity iron starting in early 2028.

Today, Hertha employs 32 people, the company says. Once it’s fully operating, the Chalyx plant will employ about 50 people.

Just ahead of the groundbreaking, Hertha announced the $133.65 million Series A round, co-led by Khosla Ventures and Doerr Capital. The round included a $65 million equity investment from the Pentagon.

“Iron and steel have shaped human progress for thousands of years. And I believe there is still an enormous amount left to invent,” Meroueh said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

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