Texas families are paying more for electricity every summer, even as the state's grid strains to keep up with new demand. We can do better.
BetterGrid is a research and advocacy organization working to lower household electricity costs and strengthen the grids we share. We're rooted in Texas. The combination of summer heat, surging data-center demand, and live wholesale prices makes the cost-of-cooling problem most acute here, but the patterns we study are arriving at every U.S. regional grid.
We educate consumers on how summer heat drives peak prices, share practical ways to cut your bill during high-demand hours, and advocate for distributed solar near the neighborhoods that use the power, because the sun shines hardest at the same time air conditioners do.
What works in Texas will work elsewhere. Our goal is to give households tools today and policymakers a template for tomorrow, starting on the grid that needs them most, and expanding to the rest as their pressures grow.
Texas residential electricity rates rose 29% from 2020 to 2024, and continue to rise. Meanwhile, ERCOT, the grid operator, is being asked to power an unprecedented wave of new data centers and crypto facilities, on infrastructure that was built for a smaller state.
ERCOT's large-load interconnection queue has nearly quadrupled in a single year, from 56 GW in September 2024 to roughly 205 GW today. More than 70% of that queue is data centers, with another 10% from cryptocurrency mining. To serve all of it, ERCOT may need to build thousands of miles of new long-distance transmission lines, costing over $30 billion. Those costs ultimately flow into the bills of ordinary Texans.
Air conditioning is the single largest driver of summer demand in Texas. When millions of homes and offices crank the AC at the same time on a 100°F afternoon, the grid leans on the most expensive generation it has, and prices spike. Even a small percentage increase in temperature can push demand up several times faster on hot days.
The cruel irony: the hottest hours of the year, when families need cooling the most, are exactly when wholesale power costs the most. That cost shows up on your bill, especially if you're on a time-of-use plan. The good news is there are simple things every household can do, and a bigger fix the state can pursue.
Texas peak hours are typically 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Shifting energy use out of that window, and pre-cooling your home before it starts, can save real money without sacrificing comfort.
Drop the thermostat 2–3°F mid-morning while electricity is cheap. Your home holds the cool through peak hours.
Raise the thermostat 2–3°F from 2–9 p.m. Pair with a ceiling fan and you'll feel 4–6°F cooler.
Dishwasher, laundry, and dryer after 9 p.m. The same kWh costs a fraction during off-peak hours.
Programmable models learn your patterns and cut peak usage automatically, and many Texas providers offer rebates.
If your household can shift usage, time-of-use plans pay you for cooperating with the grid instead of fighting it.
Texas already gets a remarkable share of its peak power from utility-scale solar. About 27.7% of ERCOT's peak demand came from solar by mid-2025. The lesson is clear: the sun delivers reliable power at exactly the hours we need it most. The next step is to put more of that solar capacity near the neighborhoods that consume the electricity.
Distributed solar (community solar farms on under-used land near suburbs, industrial rooftops, and parking-lot canopies) has three compounding benefits:
Texas has cheap land, abundant sun, and a grid that's begging for relief in the afternoon. Pairing community-scale solar with battery storage can carry that midday output into the evening "net peak" (the new ~7–9 p.m. crunch) and reduce the case for ratepayer-funded long-distance transmission to serve the data-center boom miles from where most Texans live.
BetterGrid advocates for the policies that make distributed solar near residential communities the default option: streamlined permitting, fair interconnection rules, expanded community-solar subscriptions for renters, and storage incentives that translate sun into evening savings.