#  The Green Star State 

 





February 24, 2025

 

 

By Jonathan Shaw, [Harvard Magazine](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/03/harvard-renewable-energy-texas)

THE COST OF PRODUCING renewable energy from both wind and sun continues to fall, prompting a boom in sustainable electricity production. But this has also led to an auspicious problem: what to do with the excess energy produced from sustainable sources? California confronts this issue each spring when demand for electricity ebbs just as solar panels near peak midday production. With no easy way to store the power, the state—which has some of the highest U.S. electricity prices—is forced to export its excess, often *paying* neighbors like Arizona to accept electricity that would otherwise overload California’s power lines. Across the Sunbelt, and along the nation’s windy coastlines, this problem has made large-scale energy storage the next big thing.

   ![Texas illustration](/sites/g/files/omnuum3496/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-03/green-star-state%20copy.jpg?itok=5Vl4vSaZ) 

 

Illustration by Nadia RadicAgainst the backdrop of an International Energy Agency prediction that this year, the cost of solar-generated electricity paired with batteries will become cheaper in the United States than electricity generated by new natural gas-fired plants, utilities are developing a range of storage options. These include a mix of experimental (sodium-based) and proven (lithium-ion) battery technologies, as well as gravity-based systems (to pump water uphill, for example, when electricity is abundant and cheap, then generate hydroelectric power on the way down when demand for current exceeds capacity—whether at night or when the wind dies). Such solutions for short-term needs are relatively straightforward but are designed to smooth the power supply across timescales measured in hours.

But what about long-term storage? Solar panels produce far more energy in summer than in winter, and winds often blow in seasonal patterns. Butler professor of environmental studies **Michael McElroy** and postdoctoral fellow **Haiyang Lin** have proposed what may be a better solution. Texas, the archetypal fossil-fuel state, is in an ideal position to use cheap renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen, an odorless, tasteless, invisible, and nontoxic gas that, when consumed in a fuel cell (which converts chemical energy and oxygen into electricity), yields only water as a byproduct. (Green hydrogen is made by reversing that process, splitting water—H2O—into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis.)

Read the [full article in *Harvard Magazine* here](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/03/harvard-renewable-energy-texas).



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Energy Systems ](/corresponding-research-pages/energy-systems)
- [ News ](/news-type/news)
- [ Energy Systems ](/research-area/energy-grid)
 
 

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