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The Texas Public Utility Commission has reportedly approved a Southwestern Public Service Company (SPS) plan to retire the Tolk coal plant near Sudan, Texas, and replace part of its output with wind, solar and battery storage. The plan also includes two natural-gas peaker plants, so it is a mixed resource portfolio—not a renewables-only replacement. Tolk is projected to stop operating in early 2029, subject to approvals described in the report. The available figures show substantial historical water use at Tolk, but do not establish a precise annual water-saving total after closure.
What the reported PUC approval covers
A 2026 report by CleanTechnica says the PUC authorized SPS to proceed with the Tolk retirement and a replacement portfolio intended to serve customers in Texas and New Mexico through the Southwest Power Pool. The reported capacities are:
| Resource | Reported capacity | Role in the plan |
|---|---|---|
| Wind | 1,100 MW | Renewable generation; the report does not specify project-level operating details. |
| Solar | 189 MW | Renewable generation; the report does not specify project-level operating details. |
| Battery storage | 322 MW | Storage that can shift electricity availability; duration and operating assumptions are not stated in the report. |
| Natural-gas peaker plants | Two plants; capacity not stated | Dispatchable generation. The report says the PUC imposed cost restrictions, but does not give their exact terms. |
These figures describe the reported approval, not a guarantee that every project is already built or operating. The report does not provide a detailed reliability assessment, comparable cost estimates, or enough information to assess how the storage and peakers would be dispatched.
When Tolk could close
CleanTechnica reports that Tolk is expected to cease operations in early 2029, after approvals by regulators in Texas and New Mexico. This is a projected schedule, not a completed retirement. The account available for this decision is a contemporary news report; a copy of the final PUC order was not located in the cited material, so the exact order language and conditions should not be inferred beyond what the report states.
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What the water figures do—and do not—show
CleanTechnica attributes Tolk plant water-use figures to Sierra Club’s Watts Wasting Texas Water: the plant used 1.2 billion gallons of groundwater in 2024, compared with 3.3 billion gallons of water in 2015. The categories are reported as groundwater for 2024 and water for 2015; they should not be treated as identical measurements without the underlying plant-level table. Both are historical figures, and the lower 2024 figure shows that use had already declined before the proposed closure.
Those numbers make the scale of Tolk’s past water use clear, but they do not quantify how many gallons will be saved in each year after retirement. A precise post-closure forecast was not established in the cited reporting. The article’s headline claim of millions of gallons saved each year should therefore be understood as a broad expectation of reduced plant water demand, not a verified annual savings estimate.
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Texas power-plant water use in statewide context
Sierra Club’s 2026 analysis, based on ten years of U.S. Energy Information Administration data, estimates that Texas power plants consumed 56 billion gallons of water for gas generation, 34 billion gallons for coal, and 26 billion gallons for nuclear generation in 2024. The analysis characterizes renewables and battery storage as using very little water. These are statewide estimates across plant types, not measurements of Tolk or a forecast for SPS’s replacement projects.
The Texas Water Development Board provides 2024 statewide water-use estimates; its summary is identified as a snapshot as of August 4, 2026. That statewide data context does not independently verify Tolk’s plant-level consumption or establish water savings from its closure.
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What the plan means for customers and reliability
The reported resource mix combines variable wind and solar generation with battery storage and two gas peakers. Batteries can store electricity for later use, while gas peakers are dispatchable plants; the report does not give the battery duration, peaker capacity, operating projections, or reliability modeling needed to judge how the complete portfolio performs across demand and weather conditions.
The cost protections are also only described in broad terms. CleanTechnica says the PUC authorized the two peaker plants with cost restrictions, but does not provide the cap amount, how it applies, or other terms. The available account therefore does not support a conclusion about the plan’s total customer cost or the precise protection customers receive.
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