Something interesting is that with substantial solar and batteries being deployed in the ERCOT market (in scope grid operator for this piece), solar generation in excess of what the grid can consume with load combined with grid forming inverters (vs traditional grid following) can step in when called upon if a traditionally firmer generator (coal or nuclear) trips out. The potential is already there (photons hitting panels), simply turned down to align with grid demand (curtailment), but if the sun is shining and PV is called upon, curtailment can quickly turn into emergency grid support as long as the sun is shining (I am not familiar how long it takes from ISO signal to inverter command).<p>It would be cool if individual generators shared this curtailment status/reserve in realtime publicly similar to how ERCOT reports real time generation mix data.<p>Citations:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908526">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40908526</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38848989">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38848989</a>