Texas recently generated 80% of its power from renewable and nuclear power. Here's why that matters.

For more than six hours Sunday, nearly 80% of Texas’s electricity came from solar, wind or nuclear power, a phenomenon that is likely to become more common as the Texas power grid increasingly shifts to zero-emissions power generation.

“I don't think it'll be long before this would be a boring statistic,” said Joshua Rhodes, a University of Texas at Austin energy research scientist, "but right now, it's pretty exciting." 

Starting at 9:45 a.m. Sunday, more than 78% of electricity running on the grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas came from either wind, solar or nuclear power. That percentage hovered between 78% and 80% until nearly 4 p.m., according to data from Grid Status, a site hosting public data from power grids across the country.

From 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., wind, solar and nuclear power were the top three resources providing electricity to the grid – except for a brief period from 10:20 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., when the amount of electricity from natural gas plants marginally eclipsed the amount from nuclear. 

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