alt Hacker NewsTexas needs more (any?) pumped-storage hydro (a non-chemical, gravity-fed battery) to store all this renewable energy.
TVA (similar in size to ERCOT, mostly within Tennessee) is about to begin its second such facility, after Raccoon Mountain [0]. Run-of-the-river facilities exist (including two in TVA's jurisdiction), which are capable of pumping water "up" the dam (for later use during peak loads) — perhaps LCRA might explore the feasibility of this?
Regardless of how the energy is stored, it might also (eventually) make sense to join Eastern/Western interconnects (and thereby "store" the energy outside of Texas). But I know ego/"Texus"/pride mentality exists (having grown up in Austin), so I won't hold my breath on accepting Federal regulations...
[0] wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Mountain_Pumped-Storage_Plant
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Pumped hydro is a pretty cool solution, but it requires very specific geography and water supply combinations that are unfortunately relatively rare. I'm not that familiar with Texas's water and elevation situation, but it seems less obviously a good candidate than the TVA. Don't get me wrong, pumped hydro is an awesome solution where it works, but it's not easily deployable in the way that batteries are.
What happens to your battery when you are in the middle of a drought and your "battery" doesn't have enough water in it to operate as a battery?
ERCOT is roughly 3x bigger than TVA in terms of both energy demand and service area.
Why would pumped storage be better than the massive amounts of batteries being added right now? Batteries scale small, scale big, can be put where there's already transmission, can be put at either sides of grid congestion to lower that congestion, can regulate frequency, deliver reactive power, and be moved to new locations if the grid changes and they could be better deployed elsewhere. Literally a Swiss Army knife that can grow to whatever size is needed, and they can be thrown up in months as opposed to years.
I'm not sure if hydro could compete on price any more, either. Batteries are so cheap.