If you're reading this and the cost prohibitive part of this story doesn't make sense you have to understand how far forward the Texas grid is when it comes to renewables.
For this to happen there are a lot of factors that come into play but it indicates a downward price pressure on generation that is not going to go away. Storage and transmission are going to be the largest costs for the system going forward. These "ride through" upgrades make sense in the near term (generation side) but in the long term become just another cost that in theory could be put on the storage portion of the system (not in place yet).
Texas cutting itself off from the national grid, is now at the bleeding edge of renewables. 20 Years ago, that sentence would have gotten you laughed out of the state.
There have been many occasions where the cost of power in Texas has gone negative. (see: https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/understanding-negative-pr... )
For this to happen there are a lot of factors that come into play but it indicates a downward price pressure on generation that is not going to go away. Storage and transmission are going to be the largest costs for the system going forward. These "ride through" upgrades make sense in the near term (generation side) but in the long term become just another cost that in theory could be put on the storage portion of the system (not in place yet).
Texas cutting itself off from the national grid, is now at the bleeding edge of renewables. 20 Years ago, that sentence would have gotten you laughed out of the state.