Good News for the Texas ERCOT Power Grid: Over 130 New Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants Are Proposed While Cancellations of New "Renewable" Energy Projects Hit All Time High
"The times they are a-changin"--Bob Dylan
Texas is the US leader in plans to build natural gas-fired electricity generation. A June 2025 report from the Environmental Integrity Project listed over 130 proposed natural gas-fired power projects in Texas. The proposed projects include 108 new plants, 62 expansions, and five projects for which specifics have not yet been announced and could add as much as 58 gigawatts of power generation capacity to the ERCOT power grid.
These projects are the result of soaring electricity demand, which ERCOT expects to nearly double by 2030, primarily driven by the growth of AI data centers and industrial expansion. No other state comes close to this scale of planned gas-fired generation capacity. About half the projects have publicly listed planned locations, with the largest share clustered in the ten-county Houston area. The remainder are in the Austin/San Antonio and Midland areas, with the Fort Worth/Dallas area in fourth place.
It is also noteworthy that Texas is experiencing a surge in cancellations of “renewable” energy projects, particularly grid-level battery storage projects. New battery storage projects are declining in number because they are expensive to build and are not yielding the substantial profits that developers initially anticipated. Battery storage companies generate revenue through time arbitrage of power generation, meaning they buy excess electricity produced during periods of low demand and high generation, and then resell it at higher prices when solar and wind energy stop producing power at sunset and demand is high. As long as sufficient power generation from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power is available, profit margins for battery storage will remain slim, limiting the number of new projects, especially if federal subsidies are eliminated.
The most significant reason for the cancellation of “renewable” energy projects, such as wind, solar, and battery storage, is that the Trump Administration’s energy policies have exposed the underlying truth that these projects are inherently uneconomic and cannot survive in a market without substantial federal subsidies. President Trump’s focus on reliable energy, including natural gas and nuclear power, is having a chilling effect across the industry that will likely reduce the number of “renewable” energy projects. Now, smaller developers with limited resources are feeling the squeeze and starting to cancel projects.
My Take
What a difference the last presidential election made. For four long years, the Biden Administration employed every heavy-handed means at its disposal to promote the adoption of all forms of “renewable” energy, while utilizing rules and regulations to force the closure of coal and baseload natural gas generation and reduce the use of natural gas at the consumer level.
Fortunately, that plan was upended with the election of President Trump, and Texas has emerged as a leader in the new paradigm of energy abundance with plans to almost double its current natural gas power generation capacity in the next few years. If the final “Big Beautiful Bill” succeeds in eliminating most subsidies for wind and solar generation and other non-economic grift projects, as the Senate appears to be considering (here and here), Texas’s ERCOT grid and other US power grids will be transformed into powerhouses of electricity generation and AI data centers, meeting the needs of Texas and other states for dependable power and unprecedented growth.
Thank you for reading “Thoughts about Energy and Economics.” This publication is reader-supported, so please “like” it, share it with friends and colleagues, and become a paid subscriber. Your support is greatly appreciated!
This is a necessary shift to ensure abundant, reliable, and affordable electricity. My hope is that this shift expands to the rest of the nation. Natural gas just makes too much sense.
Good news and yes the times are a changing rapidly!
With more gas generation I see the need for more micro-grids than the proposed 765 kV Permian Basin Transmission project ($33 billion) which will crisscross the state. i am also hoping data centers will get their own generation and pay for it themselves. That way we - the rate payers don't have to pay for their transmission like we do for renewables. That would also help with grid security.
Last month there were 19 project cancellations, the month before - 30 and I expect to see much more in July, but it may be a while before they scratch them. It's a wait and see. I'm waiting for the beautiful part of the bill - cancelling the IRA.
There are still over 1,000 battery projects and about 580 solar projects on the list, so I am not getting to excited yet. Our politicians think batteries will save the grid.
I heard that there is only a 19-20% completion average on the interconnect list, don't know if this is true.