The power is off in Texas because the power companies do not have options on gas to control price risk on nat-gas fuel. They do not have enough term-contracted gas to cover the surge in demand. They have a demand surge in their plants and simply choose not to pay the market, easier to just shut down the grid and let people freeze. Its about the money.
And, all wind power is frozen and solar has ice covering the cells, so 4 megawatts offline.
From what I have read the outages are not ‘rotating’...there is just huge areas without power and the temp in the teens.
Hope everyone has a fireplace...
They have a demand surge in their plants and simply choose not to pay the market, easier to just shut down the grid and let people freeze. Its about the money.
And, all wind power is frozen and solar has ice covering the cells, so 4 megawatts offline.
Does not surprise me, a bit.
Who signed off on all of this wind and solar power, for us (Texans)?
I don’t remember being asked if I wanted it, or approved of it.
😡
We’ve, thankfully, been fine....all night, and today.
We have friends whose power has been off since wee hours, this morning. A couple of them do not have fireplaces.
Wind and solar ar interruptible supply sources. Utilities have to plan accordingly.
The problem is not with the Grid, its with the power generation.
4 Megawatts?
That’s nothing. The coal fired plant down the road from me is 1206 MW. Every other commercial coal powered plant in the region but one is over 1000 MW.
It’s a lot more than 4 MW of wind generation capacity offline, if you’re talking theoretical installed capacity. 4 MW is nothing, it might not power my subdivision on a hot summer day. It’s more like 12 GW of potential wind generation offline due to icing, and realistically 4-6 GW of actual generation. You’re off three orders of magnitude.
Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state’s electric grid operator says
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/14/historic-winter-storm-freezes-texas-wind-turbines-hampering-electric-generation/4483230001/
Nearly half of Texas’ installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.
Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.
As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.
Yet, I find it hard to believe that the people of any prior era, if shown the advantages of nuclear, coal and gas, would have opted for wind and solar instead.