It appears that every type of power generation system in Texas was not properly designed to deal with cold weather. I'm not sure I would consider any of the performance "better than expected". Wind power output dropped dramatically.
Natural gas generation disappeared. Not sure why. I guess since everyone heats their homes with it, there were localized shortages. Wind performed as expected, solar did way better than expected.
According to articles posted on different threads, the problem with gas shortages was caused by problems at the well head. Evidently Texas doesn't use or have enough underground gas storage like the midwest does. So the gas has to be processed before sending it on its way. That is were the breakdown happened.
Please see this post from JD_UTDallas. It explains the issues with natural gas in Texas.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3935278/posts?page=79#79
Frozen windmills are part of the problem, natural gas production problems are a bigger part of the problem. Inadequate winterization of conventional plants is also a problem.
I’ve seen somewhere that the power planners were expecting 6 GW from wind, they’ve been getting around 4. I don’t see a 33% shortfall as “performing as expected”.
Many of the wells had to be shut-in for two reasons. Their tanks at the well site filled up with salt water and the trucks couldn’t get in to dispose of it. Also, compressors went down on several pipelines. All of that should be remedied by now except we are now experiencing Round #2.
Windmills freezing over was better than expected?
It appears that every type of power generation system in Texas was not properly designed to deal with cold weather. I'm not sure I would consider any of the performance "better than expected". Wind power output dropped dramatically.
😂😂😂 Hilarious 🤣