For the first time in Texas, in March solar generation outpaced that of coal in ERCOT, at over 10% of the generation mix. While wind hit this mark several years ago, this is a first for solar and will become a permanent fixture as the growth of solar continues to boom in ERCOT.

  Texas is quickly becoming the clean energy capital of the US, and it is being driven not by top-down regulated energy policy, but by economics and making it easy for private companies to permit, interconnect, and build projects.

“They’re [Texas] an outlier in one way and that’s really on the regulatory side. The reason Texas is now leading the country is that it makes it easy to build and to connect new, renewable or any energy projects in the state while a lot of other states carry out protracted study requirements and other regulatory hurdles”

[Vice President of General Economics at the Cato Institute Scott Lincicome] said. “As a result, new power generation comes online in Texas in about half the time it takes elsewhere.”