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The Night They Drove the Price of Electricity Down
Slate ^ | Daniel Gross

Posted on 09/19/2015 2:03:35 AM PDT by Timpanagos1

Wind power was so plentiful in Texas that producers sold it at a negative price. What?

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

In the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, the mighty state of Texas was asleep. The honky-tonks in Austin were shuttered, the air-conditioned office towers of Houston were powered down, and the wind whistled through the dogwood trees and live oaks on the gracious lawns of Preston Hollow. Out in the desolate flats of West Texas, the same wind was turning hundreds of wind turbines, producing tons of electricity at a time when comparatively little supply was needed.

And then a very strange thing happened: The so-called spot price of electricity in Texas fell toward zero, hit zero, and then went negative for several hours. As the Lone Star State slumbered, power producers were paying the state’s electricity system to take electricity off their hands. At one point, the negative price was $8.52 per megawatt hour.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: electricity; energy; greenenergyscams; liberalagenda; noob; slate; texaselectricity; texasgrid; wind; windpower
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To: SeeSharp

If you read through the article, the screwing of the rate payer is that ERCOT buys power at the HIGHEST rate instead of being fiscally responsible and buying at the lowest rates available. As a result, at high demand, rates paid at over $4000 per mwh at peak are common. My son has a 2200 SF home, pays $500+ a month.

So even if wind power can supply at $4.50 mwh, if a power plant wants to charge $4000 mwh, the wind plants get paid at the $4000 mwh rate. The result is the fleecing of the rate payer.


21 posted on 09/19/2015 5:18:56 AM PDT by rstrahan
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To: chopperman

It’s a wonder someone has not determined when the cost is low to charge battery banks that can be used during the day.

Or are we talking about such huge amounts it would not be practical.


22 posted on 09/19/2015 5:20:38 AM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: Timpanagos1

Then why is my power bill so high?


23 posted on 09/19/2015 5:28:12 AM PDT by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: Timpanagos1

Rather then being an example of just how wonderful and planet-saving wind energy can be, this is really an excellent example of the law of Supply & Demand!

Produce electricity when no one needs or wants it and you cannot sell it or even give it away!


24 posted on 09/19/2015 5:33:03 AM PDT by BwanaNdege ("When the left wins, they're in power; when the right wins, they're in office." - Mark Steyn)
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To: Timpanagos1

Use the excess electricity to make hydrogen. The hydrogen can be stored until needed or burned as fuel or used to power fuel cèlls


25 posted on 09/19/2015 5:46:08 AM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class.)
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To: Vermont Lt
t’s a wonder someone has not determined when the cost is low to charge battery banks that can be used during the day. Or are we talking about such huge amounts it would not be practical.

This is an Australian article, but will give you a good idea of the factors involved.

This is what Tesla's home battery, Powerwall, will cost to run in Australia

26 posted on 09/19/2015 5:56:04 AM PDT by BwanaNdege ("When the left wins, they're in power; when the right wins, they're in office." - Mark Steyn)
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To: Tupelo

We fly across the country and see these monstrosities. I agree they are a plight. However the libs don’t mind that. Same as smoking is bad, alcohol is bad but smoking dope is good.


27 posted on 09/19/2015 5:58:25 AM PDT by lilypad
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To: Ben Ficklin
FERC has also ruled that Texas power could be exported to the eastern and western grid if that power is DC, but no DC transmission lines have been built. The planned Tres Amigas project and the four Clean Lines Energy Partners projects are DC.

The North Tie and the East Tie are DC connections, Rectifiers and Inverters on either side of the border so that all power transfers are DC.

More info at:
http://www.ercot.com/mktrules/guides/procedures/ERCOT%20DC%20Tie%20Operations%20V3Rev8.doc

28 posted on 09/19/2015 6:23:27 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: okie01

Ercot does not buy or sell power. They oversee the transactions but do not own power.

http://www.ercot.com/about


29 posted on 09/19/2015 6:25:53 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Timpanagos1

“The Night They Drove the Price of Electricity Down”

And all of the people were singing...They went, naaaaa, na na, na na, na na na....

(great, now I can’t get that song out of my head)


30 posted on 09/19/2015 6:38:03 AM PDT by patq
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To: BwanaNdege

Thanks for the link. Very interesting.


31 posted on 09/19/2015 6:43:42 AM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: thackney
Correct but I was talking about the long interstate lines.

Clean Energy Lines projects to Memphis, St Louis, Chicago, and the west coast, as well as Tres Amigas.

I think the problem is that the state agencies have more power than FERC and they want something from the transmission line company before they OK it.

If they want to build an AC line across OK, AR, into TN, they can offer to offload some cheap power to OK city and Little Rock to grease the wheels. But with DC, the high cost of the inverter is prohibitive to offloading cheaply.

Boone Pickens hit the nail on the head in 2006 when he said the govt needs to get out of the way and let the private sector build these lines. Back in those days he was a windmill man.

32 posted on 09/19/2015 6:59:24 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: Timpanagos1
At one point, the negative price was $8.52 per megawatt hour.

To put that into terms more people are familiar with, that's negative 0.852 cents per kilowatt-hour. Meanwhile, my contract price is about positive 5.6 cents per kilowatt-hour to the generating company (plus a per kWh delivery fee and a flat connection fee to the local utility).

33 posted on 09/19/2015 7:24:26 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (The 1st amendment is the voice and the 2nd is the teeth of freedom. Obama wants to knock out both.)
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To: quantumman
ERCOT is not ‘officially’ connected to other grids!
[Texas Power Grid is an Island]
The ones you mentioned (LA and one to OK) must be connected via a DC tie then converted to AC again to avoid serious problems with frequency and voltage issues.
34 posted on 09/19/2015 7:53:06 AM PDT by TRY ONE (I never got the memo changing the name of Global Warming to Klimate Change)
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To: Ben Ficklin

DC interconnects between domains:

http://www.ercot.com/mktrules/guides/procedures/ERCOT%20DC%20Tie%20Operations%20V3Rev8.doc


35 posted on 09/19/2015 8:04:23 AM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: Ben Ficklin
Thanks or all the good info.

As I recall there was an instance of Central & Southwest -- an Oklahoma generator -- building a plant in Texas, out around Vernon.

They then strung a DC line over the Red River to connect with their own grid in Oklahoma.

The Texas power producers then sent a crew up to the Red and took the DC connection down -- because, if it remained in place, the Texas electricity market would have been subject to federal regulation. And, at the time, it was not.

36 posted on 09/19/2015 8:56:07 AM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: . IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: Ozark Tom

See number 28 and 32


37 posted on 09/19/2015 9:05:56 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: lewislynn

All the utilities that promise that 100% of their power is wind, 20% green, etc.


38 posted on 09/19/2015 9:20:38 AM PDT by tbw2
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To: reg45

The author was incorrect in his assertion that ERCOT is not connected to other grids and thus failed to explain why the Texas generators, wind and other sources did not or could not sell to utilities in other areas of the country.


39 posted on 09/19/2015 9:39:47 AM PDT by Timpanagos1
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To: KarlInOhio

Not a bad business model if you can buy a product at a negative price and sell it at a price that is far above zero.


40 posted on 09/19/2015 9:39:47 AM PDT by Timpanagos1
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