The Impossible Just Happened In Texas (Spot Price Of Electricity Goes Negative For Hours)

BI - Slate ^ | 9-21-2015 | Daniel Gross

[ckilmer]

There’s an ocean of brackish water under the west texas scrub. Brackish means the water is slightly salty. Its much cheaper to desalinate than sea water because the salt content of sea water is 4-8 times saltier.

Traditionally windmills were used to pump up water from wells.

All they need to do is harness the night time production of windmills— when electricity prices are dirt cheap— to pump up and desalinate water out in west texas—and suddenly they have fresh water that’s cheap enough to water high end crops growing on land that’s dirt cheap.

[norwaypinesavage]

Moving electricity from Texas to the Northeast is quite expensive, and most is lost in the process. The resistance in the distribution lines burns up the energy as heat in the wires.

[palmer]

I see that Texas made a major mistake in NOT setting up an interstate

Texas has repelled excessive regulation that way. The EPA has targetted them now though.

In theory, FEMA should have asked states like Texas to create such an emergency

Gimme a break. Long lines are the worst thing to do for emergencies, look at the 2012 Derecho, the worst impact was on long line.

[palmer]

This is why Texas now has some of the highest rates in the country since it `deregulated' the system.

You mean lowest? Yes Texas is a little high for residential, but they have the lowest commercial rate, 4th lowest industrial. In all sectors they are 10th lowest.

[El Laton Caliente]

When the Feds tried to regulate the Texas grid, the governor had all lines crossing the state border cut. So much for the commerce clause...

[aquila48]

Here you go...

http://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

[sten]

the tesla power pack is what i was thinking.

charge it up and ship it around.

my thought was to charge them using some alternative means. he didn’t mention what energy is used to charge up the power packs at gigafactory-1... unless it’s done via solar (really? cool)

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Thanks. Interesting conundrum. Cut off the lines and you cut off government interference, but lock your surplus out of the national market.

I have no answers to this other than either keep the status quo or join in an electrical connection network.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Glad to know about the problems in moving electricity a long way, but I was thinking more in neighboring Gulf States and SW states (where underground transmission lines would be less susceptible to weather damage, per the reply next to yours’).

[nascarnation]

lets spend gazillions of dollars on batteries to store that few hours of juice!

Great idea, but regime affiliate Elon Musk is already way down that path already...

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

I want to thank all the FR posters who joined in my quest for information on how the Texas electrical system functions.

I knew that FReepers would be knowledgeable about this (as usual) and have learned more in a few minutes/posts than if I had spent lots of time searching Google, etc.

In our case, the parts are more knowledgeable and informative than the whole (i.e. an article or two).

This is great!