EnergyServ Solutions

08/27/2026

My final post on energy coming online in Texas: Nuclear is the long-term play. Texas will not add new nuclear generation during the next three years.

That doesn't mean nothing is happening.

The Long Mott project in Calhoun County is seeking approval for four small reactors totaling 320 megawatts. The plant would provide electricity and industrial steam to Dow’s Seadrift operation.

Project Matador in Carson County proposes four large reactors totaling roughly 4 gigawatts. Its federal license application is still incomplete, and no construction schedule has been established for the reactors.

These are real projects, but they are licensing stories today. They are not near-term power supply.

New nuclear in Texas is more likely to be an early 2030s story.

For the next three years, the practical Texas buildout is solar, batteries, and natural gas. Nuclear could become the fourth major piece later, particularly if industrial and data center demand continues to grow.

Texas needs power that is fast to build today and power that can run around the clock for decades. Planning has to cover both.



Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Long Mott Project

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08/26/2026

Natural gas is still central to reliability. Texas has approximately 6.3 gigawatts of natural gas generation under construction or in final testing through 2029.

These plants can operate at night, during calm weather, and when demand rises quickly.

The major projects developing include:

• Orange County Advanced Power Station, about 1,215 megawatts

• Vast Sands in Ward County, 880 megawatts

• Cedar Bayou 5, 721 megawatts

• Legend and Lone Star, more than 1,200 megawatts combined

• Greens Bayou 6, about 455 megawatts

• CPV Basin Ranch, 1,350 megawatts

Orange County is expected to begin serving customers in late summer 2026. Cedar Bayou, Legend, Lone Star, and Greens Bayou are scheduled for 2028. Basin Ranch is targeting 2029.

Gas plants provide the steady and flexible power that a growing Texas grid needs.

They also need reliable fuel delivery, proper weather protection, and disciplined maintenance. Building the plant is only part of the job.

Next up: Nuclear power

Source: CPV Basin Ranch Construction Announcement

Competitive Power Ventures

08/25/2026

Batteries are changing the Texas grid. Texas has roughly 9.3 gigawatts of battery storage in its current construction and final-testing pipeline.

That's important because Texas often produces a lot of solar power in the afternoon, then faces another period of heavy demand as the sun goes down.

Batteries can save some of that afternoon power and release it when the grid needs it most.

Projects moving forward include:

• About 845 megawatts at Quantum and Quantum II

• 600 megawatts at Clear Fork Creek

• 400 megawatts at Callisto II

• 300 megawatts at Red Egret

• The 120-megawatt Alamo City project near San Antonio

Alamo City can run at full output for four hours. That is no small detail. A battery’s megawatt rating tells us how much power it can deliver. The stored energy tells us how long it can keep delivering it.

Batteries are excellent for daily peaks and fast response. They are not designed to carry Texas through a multiday weather event.

Next up - the truth about natgas.

Source: CPS Energy, Alamo City Battery Project

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08/24/2026

Second post in my energy series: Solar is Leading the Buildout in Texas.

Solar is the largest part of the Texas construction pipeline. Roughly 14.7 gigawatts is under construction, in final testing, or recently moving into operation.

Some of the larger projects include:

• Quantum and Quantum II in Haskell County

• Clear Fork Creek in Wilson County

• Swenson Solar in Stonewall County

• Sequoia II in Callahan County

• Charger Solar in Refugio County

Solar is being built because Texas has the land, the sunlight, and developers who can move projects quickly.

It is already carrying a large share of afternoon demand. The EIA expects solar generation to pass coal in ERCOT for the first time this year.

But solar production falls as evening demand remains high. That is why the solar buildout must be paired with storage and power sources that can run at any hour.

Solar is a major part of the answer. It cannot be the entire answer.

Next up - Battery storage.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

08/21/2026

TEXAS NEEDS MORE POWER

We set a new electricity demand record on July 22.

Demand reached a preliminary 91,089 megawatts. That is more than 5,500 megawatts above the previous record from 2023.

Population growth is part of it. So are new factories, data centers, oil and gas operations, and a long stretch of Texas heat.

The state is responding with a major construction push. Over the next three years, the current pipeline includes roughly:

• 14.7 gigawatts of solar

• 9.3 gigawatts of battery storage

• 6.3 gigawatts of natural gas

• No new nuclear capacity before 2029

Texas does not have the luxury of choosing one energy source.

We need power during the afternoon peak. We need it after sunset. We need it during a freeze. We need it when the wind slows down.

Over the next four posts, I will look at what is actually being built in the state and what each source brings to the table.

Source: ERCOT 2026 Peak Demand Records

08/18/2026

Consider this: the AI race is now an energy race with tech companies basically building private energy systems. Who takes accountability?

The tech giant is investing in the natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas, even as it pledges to honor climate commitments.

08/04/2026

Texas has been winning corporate headquarters for years. The TXSE gives it a shot at winning the financial plumbing underneath them.

For Texas, the prize runs past the exchange itself. Listings pull in underwriters, securities lawyers, research coverage, and the payrolls attached to all of it. Dallas already has the corporate base. This adds the capital markets layer on top.

New York loses less than the headlines suggest, at least at first. NYSE and Nasdaq have already opened Texas exchanges and are offering free dual listings, which tells you how seriously they take the challenge. The first thing at risk for them is pricing power. Volume takes much longer to move.

For the broader economy, a third serious exchange means real competition on listing costs and rules for the first time in a generation. Going public gets cheaper. More public companies means more places for retail capital to go.

Does the IPO drought end faster with three exchanges competing instead of two?

The TXSE debuted as the first major U.S. stock exchange to launch in decades, challenging the NYSE and Nasdaq for corporate listings and future IPOs.

07/28/2026

I still remember the group texts during Winter Storm Uri. Everyone comparing whose pipes burst first, whose power came back, who found bottled water.

Five years later, that storm is still costing someone money. This time it's CPS Energy, San Antonio's utility, which just lost a $400 million legal fight with Energy Transfer over gas it bought to keep the city running during the freeze.

CPS argued for years that the prices it paid during Uri counted as price gouging, that no supplier should get to charge whatever it wants when people are freezing to death. A Texas judge disagreed. The contracts hold. CPS owes $263 million, plus $119 million in interest and $9.3 million in legal fees.

CPS never said it didn't need the gas. The argument was about what counts as a fair price when your supplier knows you're out of options. The judge sided with the supplier.

And Uri keeps costing Texas money. ERCOT's pricing failures from that same week already total $16 billion. Now add CPS's $400 million on top.

Five years out, consumers are still paying for one bad week. What will the next big storm cost Texas?

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/cps-energy-pay-around-400m-winter-storm-uri-gas/824589/

CPS Energy alleged that Energy Transfer’s subsidiaries engaged in “unlawful and unconscionable price gouging” for natural gas, but a judge ruled against the utility.

07/24/2026

Historically multifamily distress made headlines when one big name went down in a single dramatic default. This wave is different.

Texas has flagged close to a billion dollars in commercial loans for foreclosure some months this year, and it barely gets past regional trade coverage. Five apartment complexes tied to one sponsor. Loans that never hit the cash flow number they were underwritten on, quarter after quarter. None of it trending anywhere near the top of anyone's feed.

I sit close to businesses that keep the lights, water, and HVAC running in buildings like these, and here's what I see instead of headlines: utility costs climbing on properties that were priced years ago in a different rate environment. Insurance doing the same. Taxes rising faster than rents. A utility bill eating a property's margin is the actual mechanism behind a lot of these foreclosures. Nobody writes that story. A dozen small pressures pile up, quarter after quarter, until the math stops working.

Renters feel this first. Slower repairs. A building that changes management twice in two years. A landlord who's losing money before they even collect this month's rent.

What happens to a renter when the owner of their building can't cover the utility bill, let alone the mortgage?

And what does it say about how we track risk in this economy when a billion dollars in distress moves through a state without much of anyone noticing?

Troubled debt tied to commercial properties in the Texas Triangle dip below $1 billion for July sales auctions.

07/20/2026

The property bust didn't stay in property. It never does.

The hidden local debt I wrote about last week explains something most people miss: why Beijing keeps cutting rates into a currency it's trying to defend.

The property crash forced the People's Bank of China to cut rates again and again to cushion the economy, right as the Fed held rates at two-decade highs. Money flows toward yield. The yuan slid past 7.3 to the dollar, its weakest level since the global financial crisis, and in September 2023 China recorded its largest monthly capital outflow since 2016.

A country with an open currency would have faced a run. China doesn't have one. Capital controls, daily fixings set stronger than the market, and state banks quietly buying yuan have kept the decline orderly. That's the currency version of the controlled demolition. Beijing will accept a slow grind lower, never a snap devaluation.

This matters far outside China. A weaker yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper, which pushes deflation into the global economy and pressure onto every Asian economy competing with China. It also hardens trade tensions, because cheap exports are exactly what Washington and Brussels are already fighting about.

The paper losses are one thing. Next I want to talk about what this looks like in concrete.