6 minute read
Vistra's Energy Strategy: Driving Growth and Ensuring Reliability in Texas
Whether you’ve lived here for decades or only a few months, it's clear that Texas is like no other place on earth. Known for its business-friendly environment and strong commitment to free enterprise, the state attracts entrepreneurs from all over the world. Everything that encompasses Texas’ booming economy – from oil and gas, transportation, and manufacturing to universities, hospitals and grocery stores is all made possible by reliable power generation.
For over 140 years, Vistra and its predecessor companies have been at the forefront of powering Texas. The company has established itself as the state’s leading retail electricity and power generation company. In recent years, Vistra has expanded and now provides essential resources to customers and communities from California to Maine, but Texas remains its home and the heart of its operations. The company is the state’s largest producer of electricity, with a diverse fleet of natural gas, nuclear, coal, solar, and battery energy storage. Each of these fuel sources has unique attributes and will be essential as our state moves through the energy expansion that’s now taking place.
Meeting Growing Demand
Vistra’s natural gas-fueled plants are the backbone of its Texas fleet. With more than 11,000 megawatts of these gas-fueled power plants online across the state, these facilities play a pivotal role in meeting Texas’ growing energy demands. Because natural gas plants are dispatchable, or readily able to turn on and off, they are key to helping the state’s grid operator, ERCOT, meet the instantaneous demand for electricity from people all over the state. To strengthen grid reliability, Vistra has successfully enhanced several of its gas plants through augmentations. These fast-tracked upgrades allow the company to bring new power online much more quickly than building entirely new plants, making it the most efficient way to add new capacity to the grid.
Vistra is working to add approximately 500 megawatts of power through augmentations, or enough to power 100,000 homes during the hottest time of the day or 250,000 homes during normal periods. Nearly half of this additional capacity was brought online this past summer, with the remainder expected to be operational by summer 2025, further bolstering the reliability of Texas' power grid.
Vistra is exploring other potential projects that could help address growing energy demands, though these are highly dependent on market conditions and regulatory factors.
These projects could include building new gas plants in West Texas to support the region’s increasing power needs or repowering existing plants, transitioning units from coal to natural gas.
Advanced and Efficient
Vistra's Texas coal operations have played a key role in the state's energy landscape for decades. Located just an hour from Waco, in Robertson County, the Oak Grove Power Plant is one of the newest coal-fueled plants in Texas. Since 2010, this plant has been providing reliable power through its advanced, efficient generation technology. Additionally, the Kosse Mine, located near the Oak Grove Power Plant, supplies the facility with high-quality coal, ensuring a stable supply of fuel while supporting local jobs and contributing to the regional economy.
A Nuclear Leader
Vistra proudly operates the second-largest competitive nuclear fleet in the nation. The company operates over 6,400 MW of nuclear power, including the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant near Glen Rose, south of Fort Worth. This facility features two reactors with a combined capacity of 2,400 MW—enough to reliably power approximately 1.2 million homes across the state under normal conditions. Since its commissioning in 1990, Comanche Peak has produced nearly 600 million megawatt-hours of dependable, emission-free electricity.
In a significant milestone, in 2024, Vistra successfully secured a 20-year license extension for the operation of Comanche Peak Units 1 and 2. The new licenses extend the operational life of the plant until 2050 and 2053, respectively, ensuring that the plant will continue to provide clean, reliable energy for decades to come.
In addition to its nuclear leadership in Texas, Vistra recently expanded its fleet through the acquisition of another nuclear power plant operations company, Energy Harbor. This strategic move added three more nuclear plants—two in Ohio and one in Pennsylvania—boosting Vistra’s capacity by an additional 4,000 MW. Nuclear plants are designed to operate 24/7 and only need to refuel about every 18-24 months. They are an excellent source of baseload power – meaning they're designed to produce a steady amount of power at all times rather than ramping their output up and down.
Solar and Storage Solutions
Vistra is taking significant steps toward growing and diversifying its energy portfolio by increasing its nuclear capacity and investing in solar and cutting-edge battery energy storage solutions. Vistra has two battery energy storage facilities in Texas, Upton 2 and DeCordova, which are designed to store excess energy generated during lower-demand periods and then release it during times of higher demand. This technology enhances grid stability and makes better use of renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, which would otherwise go to waste.
The DeCordova Energy Storage Facility, which is Vistra’s largest in Texas, came online in 2022 and provides 260 MW of dispatchable, instant-start, emission-free power. DeCordova offers a unique value proposition – not only can this battery system provide instantaneous full power to the grid with the flip of a switch, but it is also colocated on the same site as Vistra’s quick-start DeCordova natural gas-fueled power plant. This pairing brings together a large, one-hour battery system with dispatchable, reliable generation, leading to continuity of operation and resiliency of the grid.
Vistra is also expanding its solar energy capacity in Texas with projects like Oak Hill Solar Facility, under construction in Rusk County. This facility is already contracted to produce 200 MW of power for Amazon, –bolstering the state’s growing tech economy.
When Oak Hill is operational, it will join Vistra’s other Texas solar facilities: Emerald Grove, Upton 2, and Brightside Solar Facility. Brightside, which came online in 2022, is currently the only site in Vistra’s fleet to use sheep for vegetation management. A local rancher with a flock of 360 sheep keeps the grass short between the solar panels at the 430-acre solar facility, which generates enough clean energy to power about 25,000 homes.
A Diverse and Reliable Fleet
As Texas navigates rapid population growth and increased electricity demand, Vistra remains steadfast in its commitment to providing reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity. The company is building on a 140-year legacy, strategically investing in both renewable and traditional energy sources as it brings new projects online and makes upgrades to existing plants. Each fuel source in Vistra’s diverse fleet serves a unique and essential purpose – ensuring reliability is always priority one as the company supports the industries driving Texas’ economic growth and its evolving energy needs.
