Posted on 06/13/2024 6:27:31 AM PDT by fwdude
NBC 5 learned more about how leaders at the state's largest power grid think it will perform during upcoming hot Texas summers.
ERCOT and Public Utility Commission leaders updated lawmakers in Austin Wednesday morning after a striking new report issued by the grid operator.
They've long known that ERCOT, the state's largest power grid, is most vulnerable on hot late-summer nights as the sun goes down. That's when the big chunk of energy generated by solar power goes offline. It gets worse if the wind goes down as well, and wind generators don't run.
According to a report delivered to lawmakers this week, each August night at around 9 p.m., ERCOT predicts more than a 16 percent chance the grid will have to take emergency measures like asking people to use less energy. ERCOT estimators say there's a 12 percent chance the grid will see rolling blackouts in parts of the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcdfw.com ...
EVs and data centers.
Nuclear is the answer.
There are several reasons. 1) large population increase from other states and legal and illegal immigration, 2) rapid increase in server farms, 3) large increase in electric vehicles, 4) shuttering coal fired plants and 5) not building enough natural gas or nuclear plants. What we should have done is to force wind and solar providers to guarantee a daily minimum power generation which would have forced them to secure nat gas peaker plants to kick in when wind and solar power generation dropped.
Go nuclear
Don’t put another dime into public generated wind or solar energy. If private people want to produce that, they can sell their leftovers back to the grid. Spend all public moneys on gas generated plants or new nuclear power plants. Wind/Solar is not reliable.
AND of course. “Communities of color hardest hit.”
Surely you are not an idiot.
If the outside temp is 90F and you turn off your AC the inside tempt will be 85F by the time sunrise rolls around. At that point no one can turn on their PCs or any other equipment or even sit in the “empty” rooms — the AC is playing catchup.
Unless the AC is massive, like what is used to freeze food, it will play catchup all day until sundown.
Repeat.
In such warm areas AC has to run continuously. Even with excellent insulation.
We do have lots of lignite deposits, but we are trying to move away from using them. Lignite is really nasty when it burns. There are cancer clusters for miles around a coal power plant. And, those strip mines crawl along for miles, destroying the water table as it goes. And, a lignite power plant is just not very efficient.
But, we do have lots of natural gas we can use.
not enough time to build a nuclear reactor
Wow Perpetual Energy!
If those commercial buildings are owned and operated by corporate entities that support politicians, PACs, think tanks, etc. that promote causes and legislation contrary to my self-interests, then they have made what they want to do my business.
I did NOT mean to imply that businesses should completely shut off their A/C’s overnight, but they could raise the temperature control by about 5-10 degrees.
Well-insulated buildings can certainly retain enough residual cool air overnight when the direct sunlight isn’t affecting them, even when outside temps are hot. Anyway, I’m talking about timer-equipped thermostats which can cut back on A/C about 8:00 pm and turn them by down to the desired temperature a few hours before working hours. This is already done by many businesses to save on electricity expense.
And the completely vacant office spaces don’t need A/C on at all. There are many BILLIONS of cubic feet of these.
That’s partially because it takes more energy to cool them down than to keep them cool.
The other part of the situation is that they are billed based on peak demand rather than total usage in a lot of places.
Easy Peasy just get T.Boone to build more wind turbines. Oh wait he can’t he’s dead. Call Warren Buffet then.
Exactly! And for every 20-30 gas fired stations throw in a 4-th gen nuclear plant with no watermelon delaying-lawsuits allowed. Toss out every one. Then they could be built in a normal time-frame and thus reasonable cost. They need to give up panels and windmills - IO heard they didn’t do so well a couple years ago when they had that deep freeze hit.
Yes. My suggestion would be one way to fix the mess, but not until we get an American back in the White House.
They’ve long known that ERCOT, the state’s largest power grid, is most vulnerable on hot late-summer nights as the sun goes down. That’s when the big chunk of energy generated by solar power goes offline. It gets worse if the wind goes down as well, and wind generators don’t run.
That’s EXACTLY what they want. To drive up prices, to be “green”, and to kill off the carbon they want to offset.
Frankly, we need to build more natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants in Texas.
Ercot put way too much faith in solar panels and windmills that winter. When the freeze hit, it was cloudy and there was no wind. Just bone chilling cold. At my house we got down to 5 degrees with no power.
The global company I work for has a 6 story HQ building, complete with server room, C-suite level folks, etc.
On the weekends, the A/C is turned off for most spaces, except the server rooms/IDF’s. Also it’s temperature changed (raised in the summer, lowered in the winter) outside of normal hours (basically 6 am to 6 pm is ‘normal’ hours). I know, because I’m there at 0600-0615 AM, and the temperature is a little higher than later on in the day during the summer, or a lower cooler in the winter.
Doesn’t matter, I have a 10” desk fan that I turn on before I sit down.
Regardless of how you feel, every corporate entity should be able to use as much power as they want, subject to the obvious limitations of the line and transformer ratings at their place of business. The idea that people will have a say in how much power a business can use is an affront to freedom and the type of thing a democrat would push for.
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