Posted on 06/19/2021 7:59:17 AM PDT by fireman15
The nearly simultaneous shutdown of four gigantic power plants in Texas — capable of powering almost 1 million homes — drove the region to the brink of yet another energy crisis this past week as temperatures soared, according to data analyzed by Bloomberg.
All told, generators across the second-largest U.S. state were either down for repairs or running at reduced capacity when triple-digit heat was baking Texas, according to data compiled by Wood Mackenzie Ltd.'s Genscape unit. But the biggest impacts came from just a handful of facilities: a Vistra Corp.-owned 1.15-megawatt nuclear reactor, and three other giant facilities owned by Talen Energy Corp. and NRG Energy Inc.
"We can't really afford to lose a gig of capacity heading into an extreme weather event," said Rebecca Miller, a Wood Mackenzie analyst, using industry shorthand for gigawatt.
For days, officials were pleading with homeowners to turn off appliances and ease up on A/C use, and closely watching supply gauges to avoid a repeat of February's disastrous blackouts. At the peak of the crisis, electricity equivalent to the normal use of almost 2.5 million households was missing from the grid — just when it was needed most.
On June 7, almost a full week before the heatwave, a reactor at the Comanche Peak nuclear plant outside of Dallas dropped offline because of a transformer fire. Although the flames were quickly doused, the reactor is still down, and owner Vistra Corp. hasn't said when it may return.
(Excerpt) Read more at news-journal.com ...
There is supposed to be enough power reserve to cover break downs, heat waves, and cold. However, when such a large percent of power is supposed to come from unreliable sources like wind and solar, the entire grid becomes a mess. ERCOT grossly over estimates the generating capacity of wind and solar for political reasons, and therefore the actual power reserves are razor thin.
First it’s too cold then it’s too hot. Thus-— more windmills and solar panels STAT!!!! Yeah, that’ll do it. I can hardly wait for the NevaDUH Revised Statutes requirements to kick in increasing that “sustainable” power to 50% by 2030 and all in by 2050. Somebody better be inventin’ some really good stuff in the next couple years. Perhaps the lights will go out on “the strip”. We did notice a few weeks ago that there seemed to be a lack of charging stations on I-80 between Elko and Reno. But we weren’t really searching for them. Would have thought the new infrastructure would have penciled in READY KILLOWATT CHARGING STATIONS every hundred miles or so.
That's some interesting logic. Wind and solar are operating exactly as engineered and expected while the traditional plants are offline, so it's the fault of the wind and solar.
I believe several Texas coal and lignite fired power plants were shut down and de-comissioned in the not too distant past. I don’t believe they were a part of ERCOT, but in the SWPP power pool.
If this transformer fire could take the plant off-line it was more than likely a BIG transformer.
You don’t just go down to Quiky Mart and get one off the shelf.
The people at Comanche Peak are probably on the phones to electric utilities around the country looking for a replacement.
If they find one it will probably take weeks to get it to their plant.
Just arranging shipping of a big transformer can take a month. The big transformers take special trailers to move due to their weight.
Once the transformer is in place then you can spend days testing it before actually using it.
We learned a hard lesson at our plant a few years ago. So, now we have a spare sitting on its own concrete pad ready to be hooked up if it is needed.
It is a very expensive option that most utilities won’t spring for.
Yup, sounds like once they got wind and solar, they backed off on maintaining the traditional power plants.
You make an interesting observation. But you have your own gap in logic. Wind and solar are not engineered to be reliable or predictable. Nearly all the money being spent on the power grid is to increase unreliable and unpredictable sources of power. The obvious result of neglecting the foundation of the power grid is more and more failures more and more frequently. Are you so brain washed by the leftist media and short sighted that you can not see this?
“That’s some interesting logic. Wind and solar are operating exactly as engineered and expected while the traditional plants are offline, so it’s the fault of the wind and solar.”
Well, maybe the same could be said about your logic. So, new traditional plants are not built because the “blowhard” windmills and “shining” solar will cover all of our future needs.
We are now finding out what a crazy idea that was when we have not built the capacity that can supply the demand “reliably.”
Expect more of this as we get more of this crazy climate change/green hoax shoved down our throats.
Btttt, wind and solar were reported to be the answer for shortages/ s
I do hope the Texas government and the energy companies in Texas start learning some of these hard lessons soon. Two very public, very embarrassing failures to do the thing that they are being paid to do within a single year. If there was a hint of journalism still left in this country, there would be reporters digging into the money spent on the Texas energy grid over the past decades and data being collected about who got wealthy by cutting corners, neglecting maintenance, or investing in things like prepositioning critical spare parts.
We need to start a campaign to force a name change from ERCOT to EUrCOT - change reliability to unreliability, and honor the former board member from Germany at the same time.
Texas being “sunny and windy” the idiot politicians who can’t operate a calculator think that means wind and solar are the way to go.
When you do the math, wind and solar will never be anything but a sideshow. Even if you could build enough to meet your power needs, you need that amount again in some other form for overcast, calm days.
The problems with traditional plants are once again, due to bad planning. It’s June — only someone who has never set foot below the 50th parallel should be surprised by hot weather pretty much anywhere. Why weren’t the power plants ready? Because they wanted the grid to fail?
The big news here is that the central planners continue to plumb new depths of incompetence while demanding ever more power over everyone else’s lives.
Almost right. Traditional plants were shut down as not 'green' enough.
Bankrupting coal fired power plants was one of the Obama administration's stated goals. They did this through regulations and more an more stringent requirements mostly aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. They made it too expensive to operate them. Hundreds were shut down nationally and dozens in Texas. The revisionists are now trying to claim that coal fired power plants were shut down for economic reasons. But this is a half truth since most could no longer operate economically due to increased regulation.
In Washington State the enviro-whackos have been targeting dams. The state does not classify hydro-power as renewable energy in their endless march toward unreliable solar and wind power. In the end all of us are going to be paying multiple times as much as we once did for electric power because of this madness.
I remember a number of times Texas Freepers would make funny of there fellows from other states and the failures of their power grid while bragging about their ERCOT being a superior and you would never see fail like those of other states. How the mighty have fallen. And now our power company here in Southern Indiana has been taken over by a Texas based company and I wonder how long before our system becomes as unreliable as ERCOT
In Texas? Who did that?
If TX wants to retain their reputation as being up to the task, they’ll want to do something about this.
EPA pressed, Plant owners asked, ERCOT allowed.
No matter what they do, they better fix this soon. I can see this affecting the 2022 midterms in Texas.
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