Note that Texas is currently attempting, through legislation, to disadvantage solar and batteries and attempt to financially support fossil gas [1]. Also note that the US domestic fossil gas market is now exposed to global price movement due to LNG exports, which will cause the cost of producing power from fossil gas to rise [2]. Could Texas use cheap solar to desal? If Texas had different politicians, perhaps.
> The famously developer-friendly Lone Star State has struggled to add new gas power plants lately, even after offering up billions of taxpayer dollars for a dedicated loan program to private gas developers. Solar and battery additions since last March average about 1 gigawatt per month, based on ERCOT’s figures, Texas energy analyst Doug Lewin said. In 2024, Texas produced almost twice as much wind and solar electricity as California.
> Texas was the leading state for solar installations in the first half of the year [02024], with 5.5 GWdc online – nearly twice as much capacity as Florida, the second-ranked state, which had 2.9 GWdc.
I'm not sure to what extent desalination in particular can economically do demand response. My numbers above about the Sorek plant suggest that at least that plant design would be far more expensive to run intermittently, no matter how low it drove the cost of their energy. And 7.1MPa is too much pressure for a practical water tower to supply passively.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43501255
[2] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-lng-exports-raise-electr...