For the past year, I have dedicated my year-long AP Research project to identifying the unintended consequences associated with transitioning to green energy. Before conducting my research, my goal was to identify gaps within Texas's energy grid to suggest solutions to promote the implementation of renewable energy sustainably and reliably. Luckily enough, this project has led me to come up with my solutions with research to support it. To begin, I first started my research by searching for a trend, so I began browsing through the ERCOT website searching for historical energy prices in Texas over the past 10 years and the energy output. Following this, if I wanted to effectively identify a trend, the maximum peak loads would be the data to collect and evaluate. I needed to go through published Excel files containing the recorded data of the maximum megawatts produced each hour, and find the peak load amount, over the past 10 years. By identifying the peak load produced each year, meaning the highest recorded amount of megawatts produced per year from 2013-2023, I was able to develop a graph that accurately displayed how the peak load has gradually increased over the past 10 years. As Texas’s power load continues to grow, it causes us to rely more on renewable energy that is not classified as “reliability capable.” By finding this crucial information, proves two of the unintended consequences associated with implementing renewable energy at this current rate. The load is beginning to exceed the amount of reliable energy (labeled as dispatchable generation). In addition to recording the maximum loads, I need to find the data to prove if this increase in generation output was in some way associated with the implementation of renewable energy on the energy grid. To do this, I was directed toward the Fuel Mix data, meaning the percentages of fuel types including, coal, natural gas, oil, solar, wind, nuclear, biomass, etc. To gather this research and make my graph, I needed to find the exact numbers of each type of fuel to then make a fuel mix summary, for each of the 10 years. After spending hours collecting the Fuel Mix data, I was able to make a table and graph that showcased the change in fuel mix over 10 years. It became evident that the percentage of coal decreased due to many factors: environmental policies regulating the pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, the abundance of natural gas, and the gradual growth of renewable energy types. By looking at the graph, as coal’s abundance decreased, renewable assets simultaneously increased. After analyzing the graphs, I was able to get four takeaways. Renewable energy has increased on the energy grid for the sake of environmental conservation and technological advancements. While this is a great thing, the implementation of green generation assets has simultaneously led to the replacement and decrease of nonrenewable assets to promote green technology. The crux of the matter is, that when Texas’s energy grid is taken into context, the energy demand is surpassing the amount of reliable and accessible energy. Without supplementing the amount of energy produced from nonrenewable plants, which green technology is not currently advanced enough to do, the demand becomes too high to fully accommodate, leaving the energy grid in high alert, stress, and chaos. Undeniably, the green transition is the future of energy, however, without the correct infrastructure and support, it will not be successful or sustainable.