When Texas’s privately-run electrical grid collapsed amid a battery of winter storms in February of 2021, it plunged over 4.5 million people into darkness, and contributed to hundreds of deaths due to the lack of water, food, and heat. A similarly tragic story almost unfolded in July of this year — had in not been for the deployment of a jaw dropping amount of solar power infrastructure that kept the grid from collapsing under the strain. New reporting by the Texas Tribune details the state’s rapid adoption of solar energy, specifically solar panels and storage batteries. The Tribune notes that at various points, solar power accounted for over 45 percent of the state’s total electrical generation, breaking state records both for total electricity generated by solar panels and for total electricity discharged from solar batteries. More on Texas: Climate Scientists Shake Their Heads as First US City Running Completely Out of Water