Posted on 02/18/2021 5:06:56 PM PST by beancounter13
After winter storms continued to barrage the state Tuesday night, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the body overseeing the grid that serves 90 percent of the state’s homes, couldn’t offer a timeline for when power for every Texan would be restored. Over the long weekend, the council had advised local utilities to shed energy use with rolling outages in order to maintain the reliability of the electric system after a surge in demand, or otherwise risk uncontrolled blackouts that will take longer to reverse. Some four million homes in the state had been left in the lurch without energy in the bitter cold—many for over fifty hours—and as of Wednesday morning, 2.7 million homes still lacked power.
As Texans have fled for hotels, bunked with friends and family, or, without options, hunkered down in their homes watching pipes burst and the water in toilet bowls freeze, lawmakers have questioned whether the council has mismanaged the response. On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott said the situation was “unacceptable” and called for the council’s leaders to resign. State legislators are now planning to investigate what led energy generation to drop off when Texans needed it most.
To help make sense of what led to ERCOT’s trouble handling this energy crisis, Texas Monthly spoke with Joshua Rhodes, an energy guru—who was also frozen out of his South Austin home and had temporarily relocated to a warm location in Dripping Springs. Rhodes is a founding partner at IdeaSmiths LLC energy consulting firm and a research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin whose work focuses on the area of smart grid and bulk electricity systems. The interview has been edited for clarity.
(Excerpt) Read more at -texasmonthly-com.cdn.ampproject.org ...
Succeed! Oh knoes! Snowflakes, we need federal money now!
Texans talk tough, until it snows
We went through the exact same thing in 2011 with a deep freeze and extended blackouts. And they never ensured that the infrastructure we needed to meet the demands of 200,000 people a year moving to north Texas got built.
Instead, they built expensive windmills that freeze up when it is freezing and have extensive conservation ad campaigns ... while refusing to expand the nuclear plant in east Texas or build more natural gas plants though we produce natural gas in DFW.
A Texas heat wave in August 2019 provides a good example of how renewables can distort electricity grid operations. In the prior ten years, wind capacity had grown from 10% to 26% of capacity in the Texas power market (ERCOT).[x] The low marginal cost of subsidized wind power depressed market prices for electricity to the point where over 5,000 MW of conventional generation chose to retire in 2018 rather than continue losing money. With electricity demand reaching record levels, these retirements combined with an unpredicted drop in wind generation to force ERCOT to enact emergency procedures to avoid blackouts. Although blackouts were avoided, electricity prices that were under $20 per MWh in the morning of August 13, 2019 rose to $9,000 per MWh in the afternoon.[xi]
It’s Time to End Subsidies for Renewable Energy
https://www.americaspower.org/its-time-to-end-subsidies-for-renewable-energy/
I will read it and then comment afterwards, but the readership of “Texas Monthly” tends to be land developers, real estate agents, bankers, lawyers, and other virtue signaling Tesla driving types so I am fairly confident it will be yet another propaganda piece to allow Federal “high paying union job” types to destroy Texas for the good of the planet ...
” When ERCOT does planning for winter, they only really count on 10 percent of wind turbine capacity being available. We’re already not relying on it very heavily to be there. “
Gives the lie that this has anything to do with wind power.
It’s sheer incompetence.
If you’re gonna smear us all. use a seine instead of a broad brush. It’s much more efficient.
Bad winter ice storms are a fixture in Texas. Always have been. Before this organization and renewable energy, this never happened. In the past, the only time the power went out was when lines were physically damaged by ice, or a tornado tore lines down. This is at the feet of windmills, and the organization running the grid. All of it was installed by the Republicans who have held solid power the last 25 years in Texas. Bush, Perry, Abbott.
Maybe I am mistaken, but I don’t think I heard of anyone calling for federal money to help with this. Yes, we did request a Federal Disaster declaration, but that happens on every weather event everywhere in the country.
Can’t argue with your logic. The guy is based in Austin so beware!
Bookmark
Hold on. He also says that about 40% of the energy loss can be attributed to wind and solar.
So it seems the windmills are not effective during the best of times. I think this was just a disaster that was beyond any anticipation. What it tells me is I need to start saving for a generator and need one of those emergency food packs. The preppers of the world made it through just fine.
“hunkered down in their homes watching pipes burst...”
There’s no reason for having pipes burst — most snow-country home-owners would know enough to drain the lines, in those conditions.
ERCOT is an independent, they can’t obtain but a small amount of power from the eastern and Mexican grids. They wanted to be independent, well, they are. They relied too heavily of wind even after building their wind farms without de-icers like those in the north have. Texas got what it set itself up to get by deliberate choices made in the past.
I hear what you are saying. At the same time, I will say that I kind of like our power market in spite of this. I don’t think I would want us to return to the Rate Regulated market of old where utilities burned money freely simply because they could throw it back on the rate payers (us).
The ol' false analogy scam. Compare making decisions for a better power grid to making decisions to build a perfect car.
Taking a nuke plant offline for repairs in February was not a good decision. Late March or April (or last October) would be better. Keeping existing plans operational especially in the critical winter and summer months is a good decision. And there are likely other decisions that don't involve paying for and building enough power plants to give 150% coverage for the next Ice Age.
True enough. Even I did not realize that EVERY county in Texas was under the same winter storm warning.
I knew parts of Mexico had bad weather, but McAllen?
OK, if they are only counting on 10 percent of the wind power being available (and it was about half that) how do you get to the alleged 40 percent of the energy loss being attributed to wind?
I’m not saying wind energy is all that great, but these idiots didn’t have the gas, or the nuke up and running when they needed it. Too many people who just simply hate the idea of any renewable energy (I like it, but don’t think it should be subsidized) are excusing extreme incompetence and utter failure to plan by blaming their pet hobgoblin.
My wife’s uncle sent a subscription to us as a gift. I’ve noticed a decidedly leftward shift over the past couple of years. N
Birdcage liner.
Really? Which nuclear plant went offline?
As far as I know nuke plants only shut down for emergency situations (to avoid catastrophe) or for re-fueling (about every 18 months).
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