I’m not sure that the Texas Grid would have survived the
situation without major outages if it had been connected to
other grids. With the freezing, lines down, substations off
line, plants shut in, etc. etc.there still would have been
major problems. JMO
To a degree it was like a major hurricane and its destruction
along the Gulf Coast and inland where it comes ashore. No
power for days until the system can be rebuilt, etc.
If we’re really heading into a sunspot minimum as some theorize, Texas is going to have to spend the money to make all their grid systems robust down to perhaps -10F.
The technology is available and proven, just needs to be funded.
Alternative systems like Big Wind and Big Solar also need robust amounts of backup from the good old stuff, which is expensive.
No, I’m not overlooking the outages caused by non-wind sources. However, the information is in.
Wind power plummeted while natural gas power surged. Texas can’t afford to be the biggest U.S. relier on the most unreliable energy source anywhere. The only reason why responsible Texans are forced to rely on wind is that the “deregulation” structure forced on us by Governor George W. Bush forces us into this position.
It need to be scrapped. Customers should not be able to use public infrastructure to make their neighbors dependent on unreliable power sources.