Texas Solar News Digest for Feb ’26: Stuff We Think Matters
By Adam Glick, Solar Sherpa, NATiVE Solar
Hi folks, instead of diving deep, we collected 10 interesting stories and happenings from around Texas over the past couple of week which you might have missed… Below are 10 Texas solar, storage, and grid stories worth your time -whether you’re a homeowner thinking about resilience, a business planning long-term energy costs, or just someone wondering how we keep the lights on in a fast-growing state.
Meta doubles down on Texas solar
Big tech keeps voting with its feet -and its balance sheet. Solar keep winning.
Meta signed another long-term power purchase agreement tied to a 176 MW solar project in Texas, reinforcing a trend we’re seeing across data centers and large employers: Texas solar is now core infrastructure, not a feel-good add-on companies use to merely check the “green” box.
https://www.renews.biz/109827/zelestra-signs-new-meta-ppa-for-texas-solar/
Why it matters: The same grid that serves hyperscalers serves homes and businesses. Large-scale solar helps stabilize prices and capacity for everyone downstream.
*We’ve covered META/Facebook’s solar and renewables strategy and actions here on The Feed previously
Texas adds over 500 MWh of battery storage
Solar’s quiet but powerful sidekick.
Two new Texas battery projects totaling 503 MWh of storage were announced, This is exactly the kind of capacity that helps smooth peaks, manage outages, and keep the grid flexible when the grid gets stressed-out like it did last week during the icy-snowy weather.
Translation: Grid-scale battery storage is here, it’s scaling, and it’s making solar (and wind) far more useful after sunset.
Texas grid performs better during winter stress
Here’s a quiet *win* we all care about!
The Texas grid handled recent cold weather far better than past events, thanks largely to new generation capacity (yes, including solar and storage).
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/01/29/texas-winter-storm-uri-anniversary-power-grid-ercot/
*We’ve reported extensively and regularly on Texas’s grid stress problems on the past several years here at The Feed
No victory laps, but real progress is real progress. Let’s hope ERCOT and the various state utilities keep investing where it counts -infrastructure.
Texas solar keeps breaking growth records
At this point it’s almost boring -except it’s not.
Data from industry and economic analysts continues to show Texas leading the nation in new solar capacity additions, outpacing nearly everyone else.
https://www.industrialinfo.com/news/article/texas-relies-on-solar-dallas-fed-says–353015
Fun fact: This is happening without net metering mandates or flashy state incentives. Texas is just doing the right thing here. *We’ve written a lot about various aspects of solar market growth in Texas recently
Solar output in Texas is catching up to coal
This would’ve sounded impossible a decade ago.
Texas solar generation is now regularly rivaling coal output, especially during peak demand hours.
https://energynow.com/2025/12/texas-makes-clean-power-breakthrough-as-solar-output-overtakes-coal/
We love this trend here at NATiVE!
A major Texas anti-ESG law gets struck down
Here’s some policy news that actually matters in this space.
A U.S. judge ruled Texas’s anti-ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investment law unconstitutional, removing uncertainty that had been chilling clean-energy financing.
We think our Texas lawmakers are doing the right thing here.
Texas cuts red tape on rooftop solar
This one’s for homeowners.
A new Texas law reduces permitting and inspection friction for residential solar installations -our permitting team brough this to my attention this week.
Less paperwork = faster installs = lower soft costs and timely project completion. This is a win all-around!!
San Antonio utility seeks 600 MW of solar
More municipal power demand is still a very real goal for most parts of Texas. Planning for infrastrucure growth is time-consuming and complicated -with lots of moving parts.
CPS Energy issued a major request for 600 MW of solar capacity -enough to run thousands of homes and businesses.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/cps-energy-solar-procurement-ppas-ercot-trump/806047/
While NATiVE Solar doesn’t build grid-scale solar farms, we still love to see this happening for our customers within the CPS Energy region.
Data centers are reshaping Texas power demand
AI doesn’t run on vibes. It runs on electrons. Lots and lots of electrons. The expected power demands of newly announced AI datacenters is absolutely staggering.
And the explosion of ddata-center growth in Texas is forcing serious conversations about how we generate power responsibly and affordably. Everybody seems to have something to say about this but certain themes keep rising to the top of the discussion.
https://news.constructconnect.com/renewable-energy-is-key-to-powering-texas-data-centers
Solar + storage keeps showing up as the least-bad answer. Cool! :) *We’ve done some deeper dives on this topic in recent months here @ The Feed
Clean energy is fueling Texas jobs & manufacturing
This part sometimes gets overlooked.
North Texas and other regions are seeing manufacturing (and employment growth!!) growth tied directly to clean-energy availability and price stability.
Energy choices shape local economies. Full stop.
The big picture
Here’s the high-level patterns we keep seeing week after week when we look around our state here at NATiVE :
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Solar is no longer “alternative” in Texas -it’s structural
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Storage is quietly becoming the grid’s “shock absorber”
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Policy is messy, but the momentum for renewables is real and unstoppable at this point
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Reliability and affordability are driving adoption more than ideology
That’s good news whether you’re powering a home, a hospital, or a whole lot of servers.
More soon. :)
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