[dirtboy]

It’s far more complicated than wind turbines. Max capacity on the Texas stand-alone power grid is geared towards summertime and the high A/C demand that comes with it. Many generation facilities are shut down during the winter with little or no winterization done. So those facilities were unable to come up when needed, despite several days of warning that this cold snap was coming.

Pathetic planning on the part of ERCOT and the utility companies in question. The frozen turbines further compounded the issue and turned it into a crisis. ERCOT has to demand far more redundancy in the way of gas generators to match at least half the wind capacity if needed. Redundancy costs money but saves lives.

[TexasFreeper2009]

what the need to do is to determine what the maximum power demanded during a crisis was and make sure going forward that we have enough power plants to cover that need NOT counting ONE FREAKING windmill! The windmills should be EXTRA, over and beyond what we would need in a crisis.

[ConservativeDude]

So those facilities were unable to come up when needed, despite several days of warning that this cold snap was coming.”

how long does it take to get a facility up and running? just curious. like a week or two? Or...?

[KC Burke]

Your post (as always) is very much on target. Wind and solar (immature sources being undependable) failed in winter demand to a certain extent but the real failure was natural gas generation. That system, which in the summer comes on-line fast during peak demand, was not prepared for winter peak demand and once failure to prevent peak overload began it cascaded.

Natural Gas due to its nearby well heads has little storage in Texas and relies on wells, pipelines, well-head tanks that also get water in them, pressure systems not ready for winter peak usually dealing with summer peak and less usage by end users due to climate change bullshit.