There’s a very interesting point made in the article at your link: TX presently depends on wind power for just 7% of it’s power demand in the winter. 7%!!!
Even if all of that 7% failed, it would not have been a disaster if the existing baseline sources (coal, nuclear, and gas if properly handled) had been properly winterized, contingency plans made, and so on. A 7% shortage, or even 10% could be managed with outages to industries, large government buildings, and so on.
Unfortunately, the baseline power plants appear to still not be sufficiently winterized, despite the experience of a similar but less brutal event in 2011: Even the freezing up of and pressure drops in gas supply pipelines turned out to not be the problem it might have been. Why? Because so many gas powered plants had a whole range of other equipment crucial to operation freeze up. In 2011, wind turbine failure rates were no worse than the baseline power sources failure rates. Some types of gas plants failed at particularly high rates.
https://www.balch.com/files/upload/NERC_8_16_2011_SW_Cold_Weather_Event_Final_Report.pdf
Certainly too much reliance on wind power COULD become problematic, because what do you do on bitter cold calm day? But, it is not yet at that level. The present problem is reliance on baseline plants that aren’t really baseline because they and their sources are not sufficiently winterized.
(As an aside, I wonder what the costs per MW are to add winterization to a wind turbine and it’s associated equipment if included in construction, vs. the costs to refit “baseline” power plants. This still does not solve the truly inherent problem of a wind turbine given a cold, calm period, but I’m guessing that such are not the highest demand winter days.)
Perhaps Texans should be asked if they would like to see incentives and subsidies revoked for any new Green power and put toward low interest loans to Utilities for winterization of existing baseline power plants. In addition, as a matter of public safety, demand that emissions regs on all power plants be rolled back to 2010 standards until the grid can be ascertained to be rock solid.
Thank you, good post.
This is a comment of mine in another thread:
Maybe I shouldn’t have been happy I didn’t lose electricity.
Outages Morph Into Outrage As Texans Slapped With “Mind-Blowing” Power Bills
The rolling blackouts that plunged up to 15 million Texans into darkness amid a historic cold snap are diminishing by the end of the week. About 188k customers were without power in the state on Friday morning. Days after power prices jumped from $50 per Megawatt to more than $9,000, the horror stories pour in for those who had power this week during grid chaos as they are mind-boggled how their energy bills skyrocketed.
Texans who were on a variable or indexed plans with power companies are only now reporting their bills have jumped hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars for the month.
WFAA Dallas spoke with one person who said:
“Mine is over $1,000…not sure how…700 square foot apt I have been keeping at 60 degrees.
One couple said:
“When your electric company tells you to switch but there has been a hold on switching for over a week now. Using as little as possible 1300 sq ft house and this is my bill. . How is this fair. I only paid $1200 for the whole 2020 year. “
A tweet was accompanied by a screenshot of their bill that now stands at $3,800 for the month.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/outages-morph-outrage-texans-slapped-mind-blowing-power-bills