Posted on 07/25/2022 12:03:56 PM PDT by rktman
It’s been stupidly hot here in Texas lately and as you’ve likely heard, the state’s power grid is straining to meet record-high electricity demand.
Twice in mid-July, ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, was forced to ask the state’s consumers to reduce their power use. On the afternoon of July 13, the system had less than 3,000 megawatts of spare capacity as demand hit nearly 80,000 megawatts. That’s not nearly enough reserve capacity.
Since February 2021, when the Texas grid nearly collapsed during Winter Storm Uri, scads of reports and opinion pieces have been written to explain why the electric grid in America’s biggest energy-producing state is so shaky. But there’s no need for complex reports or in-depth analysis to understand why Texans don’t have enough juice.
Instead, Texas’ power woes can be understood by looking at a single chart published last week by ERCOT.
The chart shows that when power demand in Texas surges (the black line), wind generation (green line) often goes to Cancun with Ted Cruz. Indeed, when power demand zigs, wind production usually zags. That’s what happened during the middle of the day on July 13. As demand in the state was soaring, the output from the 35,391 megawatts of installed wind capacity on the ERCOT grid fell to less than 1,000 megawatts. That’s a capacity factor of less than 3%.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearenergy.org ...
Hot air rises . Slowly rises. In fact, all of the US south of the Mason-Dixon line is in the same latitude region known as the Doldrums off of the west coast of Africa. Ships were marooned there for days and weeks with no winds.
So my son just moved from Ft Worth to Wyle (Dallas suburb). He had a two year contract at $.08/kWh. Fortunately he was able to transfer it to the new place. If he wouldn’t the rate would have been $.30/kWh. Thousand dollar monthly electric bills coming soon?
Simply stated, hot domes have stagnant air under them. No local pressure differential. We have that this week in the Pacific Northwest also. Will be 110° inland temperatures with no wind at all.
Honestly, and I have seen a few of these, most windmills would work best if they captured rising hot air instead of harnessing lateral wind movement - at least in the south.
Like solar farms where the panels rotate towards the sun throughout the day, maybe use rising heat during low and high wind days, and rotate to use lateral wind movement between those two.
i’ll prolly get slapped for this, but,
floating on a sea of oil, and electricity is in short supply?
i am confusion...
>Go along to get along’s are killing’ us.
Kinda like “reaching across the isle”...
Texas used to export a lot of power to CA. None to spare, not sorry!
We’re finding out quickly that the great United States of America CANNOT support the entire population of the Western Hemisphere even if they do “caravan” their asses up here to join the party. The “cake” is only so big and there isn’t enough for everybody. America the Pinata has been whacked out.
There’s nothing left. Anybody who believes differently is a blithering idiot.
How about ten years of population growth from illegals?
Right mouse on the image. Select “copy image location”.
Put in “lt”img src=” paste down Link to picture””gt” and it will work fine.
Yes, solar is about a 12 year ROI up here in NH based on the current installed cost/KWH net metering(at least it was when I checked about a year ago).
I am 59. I am not sure I want to be in this house for that ROI to pay itself off.
However, I recently watched a YouTube video posted a couple years back by a guy in KY that installed his own free standing array. He ordered everything from Mission Solar out of Texas. They drop shipped it(less than truckload)to his residence. He built the support system for the array out of PT lumber.
He installed the panels himself. The micro converters. The wiring including underground conduit. He brought that into a shop/garage building about 30’ from his residence. He did hire an electrician for the final wire up to his existing home/grid system.
He still qualified for the Federal Tax credit of 26%-28%(whatever it was then) of the system cost. However, instead of spending $30-$35K for the system, it was around $12-13K less the tax credit.
My point is that his payoff became about 5 years or less based on his calculations.
Again, he did not put the panels on his roof.
He built the support system out of 4x4 and 4x6 PT lumber.
He had his own tractor with back hoe attachment to dig holes. He supplied 90% of the labor. He also cut down trees to increase the solar gain. He only brought an electrician in to do the final hook up and inspect his work.
Mission Solar will sell direct to the consumer. No middleman mark up.
I like the idea of avoiding roof install. Seems like a good way to avoid water leaks.
Anyone who lives in Texas knows that when it gets really hot here, the wind dies. About the only place that gets decent wind during the dog days of summer is the gulf coast.
Yes they did. It was the human intervention that screwed things up, and that little matter of the faulty relief valve.
I got caught up in the early 2021 power shortage in Texas-—and I live in Nevada.
I sent my monthly vehicle insurance payment to State Farm in Dallas-—and 10 days later—my agent called, saying I hadn’t made my payment-BUT I HAD DONE SO.
The power outage apparently prevented ANY payments from being applied-—so the computer was about to shut me down.
I had to send another check-—and to borrow from my brother to do so. I am on Soc Sec. SO—NOW they had 2 checks. Which took over 5 weeks to clear.
2 months later-—repeat action.
NOW—I am PISSED. I have to send a 2nd check AGAIN—and AGAIN, it takes weeks for it all to clear.
I now send all my checks to my agent-—they clear within 2 days.
Have no idea if those ‘late payments’ are on my credit record.
I am waiting for a group of big-wigs to get stuck in an elevator due to power outage........
I, too, have Mission Solar panels made in Texas. But I'm not comfortable with doing the labor with that much power. Plus, with the upgrade I'm doing I'm adding a new electrical panel with the EV in mind (though I'll put a couple of other circuits in it too). My inverters will optionally power the new panel only when I have at least 80% SOC (or whatever I set it too). The idea being that I'll have two 240V outlets to choose from when I charge my EV: one that's constantly powered and one that's intermittently powered. If I come home with the EV, have over 120 or so miles left on the charge, and no plans to drive a long trip, I'll plug it into the intermittently powered outlet. Otherwise I'll plug it into the constant powered outlet.
The idea being that I can probably charge my EV for free about 90% of the time with the intermittently powered outlet (assuming I'm correct that 80% left in my home batteries is more than enough to power my house until the next batch of sunlight for my panels, which it almost always will be with 90kWh of battery storage). But if I come home and need a charge without care if it's free or not, I'll have the constant powered outlet too.
Doing that consistently helps me not only with ROI, but also still have power on most days when the Dims make our power about as unreliable as it is in 3rd world countries like California.
>>...when it gets hot the wind stops.<<
When the wind stops it gets hot.
Ship them out, decrease demand.
************
What’ca gonna eat?
Texas has a LOT of wind and solar energy as part of its mix. Solar and wind are fickle sources. Sometimes they’re on. Sometimes they aren’t.
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