The booming renewables industry in Texas should, in theory, create a role for energy storage plants to manage its variability. Years into the Lone Star State’s wind and solar deployment, though, little grid storage has arrived, and future prospects look bleak. Early projects have delivered some 89 megawatts of storage into ERCOT's grid, said Cheryl Mele, chief operating officer of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator. Another 1,800 megawatts have entered the interconnection queue, which by no means guarantees they will be built.