EDIT: This comment is licensed in the public domain if you'd like to steal it for a blog post call the WSJ editorial board out on their lies.

How strange to blame renewables versus collective planning failures at CASIO (CA grid operator) [1] [2] [3] and policy failures at ERCOT (TX grid operator) [4] [5]. I'm almost of the mind that they're not arguing in good faith! For the WSJ, this does not surprise me.

> ERCOT officials said the power plant outages were unexpected — and could not provide details as to what could be causing them.

> “I don’t have any potential reasons [for the plant outages] that I can share at this time,” said Warren Lasher, ERCOT senior director of systems planning, during a Monday call with media. “It is not consistent with fleet performance that we have seen over the last few summers.”

> The number of plants that were forced offline today is “very concerning,” Lasher said.

> “We operate the grid with the resources that we have available,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of the generators to make sure their plants are available when demand is high.” [5]

ERCOT also chooses not to have a capacity market, so they don't pay for generators to be ready to generate, with predictable results.

Sidenote: Texas has ~$20B/15GW in renewables in the deployment pipeline. [6] I don't have solid number on storage, but even without capacity contracts, battery operators are deploying to Texas. Tesla is building a black start battery system [Gambit Energy Storage LLC] outside of Houston to capture revenue for ancillary service [7] [8], and it was scheduled to enter commercial operations on June 1st.

[1] https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUCWebsite/Content/Ne... (CASIO letter to Gov Newsom)

[2] https://www.seia.org/blog/renewables-didnt-cause-california-... (Renewables Didn't Cause California Blackouts, Experts Correct the Record)

[3] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/californi... (California’s blackouts and renewable energy: Culprit or imperative?)

[4] https://electrek.co/2021/06/15/texas-is-sweltering-and-major... (Texas is sweltering, and majority of power plants down produce natural gas)

[5] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/14/texas-power-grid-con... (Texas grid operator urges electricity conservation as many power generators are unexpectedly offline and temperatures rise)

[6] https://ieefa.org/texas-top-u-s-electricity-producer-has-20b... (Texas, top U.S. electricity producer, has $20B in renewables pipeline)

[7] https://ieefa.org/tesla-subsidiary-building-100mw-battery-st... (Tesla subsidiary building 100MW battery storage project in Texas)

[8] https://web.archive.org/web/20210328130730/http://angleton.t... (Angleton, TX planning department FAQ on Tesla's Gambit Energy Storage Facility)