Posted on 09/22/2015 6:26:32 PM PDT by bigdaddy45
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
This article was posted for the twenty-fourth time, breaking all previous records. The strange thing is you are going to have to pay me to read it.
It happens. When you add up the costs of disposal or even destruction of excess goods, along with carrying costs, and warehousing costs, and taxes it can make sense to pay someone to take it. The economic principle is “sunk costs are irrelevant for decision making”.
So let’ see if I have this right. At the point of negligible demand, in the middle of the night, when few need it, and wind turbines are spinning like dervishes, they are paying to offload excess production. Is that about it? What a crazy world we live in. Call me when they start paying people to use power on a Wednesday in July on a 100 degree day at 2:00PM.
This has not been a major issue most of the time as long as the source can be regulated to follow load. Coal generation, hydro generation, natural gas generation - most sources can be regulated. In addition, energy storage systems like pumped hydro storage can serve to “level out” the load curve.
But, when a non-regulatable source like wind or solar enters the market, we see an increased need to regulate other resources to maintain the generation-load match. And if those sources reach their limit of regulating capability, we see the market price reflecting that.
I've skipped over nuclear - most can be regulated, but getting a nuke plant to reduce output almost takes an act of congress. They are a stubborn, cantankerous lot, those nuclear folks.
Your son needs to either change providers or add insulation.
I do have a relatively large house, all electric, and my bill last month was $125. In August. In Texas.
There’s something flaky happening with water bills in cities all around the DFW area. It may be state-wide.
In our neighborhood, with no increase in water rates, August bills spiked to double or triple the same time last year. The bills claim a huge increase in usage, and it’s the consumer’s word against the city.
However, in multiple instances, the home owner wasn’t even living in the house during the disputed time and could nont possibly have used that much water.
These are fradulent bills, probably a result of new meters or maybe a software glitch, but there’s no proof and the city isn’t interested. Sounds like what’s happening to you.
And unlike electricity, water is a monopoly where we live. Your only option is to drill your own well but the payout is too long.
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