Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

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Isgrimnur
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Isgrimnur »

EIA

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The reserve margin estimates exceed the target in every region, except in ERCOT (most of Texas). Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions currently have reserve margins well above their region's target level, indicating significant excess capacity.

The Texas heat wave in August 2011 led to a supply emergency that illustrates the importance of reserve capacity. The 2011 Summer Short-term Reliability Assessment projected ERCOT total internal demand would be equally likely to be above or below 64,964 megawatts (MW). An unprecedented heat wave drove demand to record levels: 68,294 MW, or over 5% above the level quoted in the Summer Assessment. Reserve margins are maintained, at significant cost, for just such unanticipated emergencies. Operators were able to avoid loss of customer load (a blackout), but the ERCOT system used nearly all of its reserve generating capacity.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Smoove_B »

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:52 pm Of course it is. It's a natural disaster. We just set 130 year old temperature records across 270,000 square miles and 30 million people. Also, not almost a whole week. 36 hours.
Not picking on you, just reinforcing the idea.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Paingod »

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:52 pmIt's a natural disaster. We just set 130 year old temperature records across 270,000 square miles and 30 million people.
The cold temperatures are a natural hazard, but the disaster was man-made. Nature didn't force Texas off the main grid or push the companies running it to cut corners on production capability in order to save money. I absolutely refuse to blame the temperature for this problem when people could have prevented it with a little regulation and less arrogance. I know that goes against the priorities in Texas, though.

*Edit: Didn't see Smoove's post above before replying.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

From a power trading perspective I can give you insight why that 2012 market is hitting it's target almost on the nose. ERCOT at least in 2010 - 2014 -- when I had visibility into it -- has an the incentive structure to join the reserve. To simplify the process a bit, there is a day ahead market where as a power generator there is an auction. You bid a price to join a pool that serves as reserve margin for the next day. The upside for a generator is they get a known price per MW generated which helps them maximize their cost against their supply and operations pricing model. To boil it down even more, the upside is fixed price return and the downside is there is a penalty if you are Forced Out or they never hit the reserve. If you are Forced Out or have a failure to fire up -- say if your generator shits the bed -- you may miss your commitment and get penalized. There is a risk model for all this naturally. I also seem to recall a bonus to join the pool but it was pretty nominal.

The effect is that they always hit the target almost exactly. Worse unless you want the guaranteed price, you won't bid in and instead gamble that the price will spike and hope that ERCOT calls for additional capacity at a premium price. It essentially causes a dance on the edge of failure. In the summer, most generation companies expect opportunities to cash in on this and are ready to go. In the winter this was a bomb waiting to explode with deadly consequences because you rarely have good "gambling" days and its better to run your stuff ragged during the summer when paydays are more likely and defer maintenance. Like I said, Texas you have real problems.

Edit: As an aside, everywhere they resolve the reserve problem a completely different way. The grid takes insurance out. They take out 'must run' contracts with plants. The plant will come up at some minimal load and be ready to swing up to catch excess demand on command from the ISO. They pay the power generator for standby capacity that 'might be needed' to cover peak load. Back in ERCOT, AFAIK that isn't even a legal option.
Last edited by malchior on Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by gbasden »

Paingod wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:40 pm
noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:52 pmIt's a natural disaster. We just set 130 year old temperature records across 270,000 square miles and 30 million people.
The cold temperatures are a natural hazard, but the disaster was man-made. Nature didn't force Texas off the main grid or push the companies running it to cut corners on production capability in order to save money. I absolutely refuse to blame the temperature for this problem when people could have prevented it with a little regulation and less arrogance. I know that goes against the priorities in Texas, though.

*Edit: Didn't see Smoove's post above before replying.
I haven't seen stories about equivalent misery in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma or New Mexico. They got the same frigid temperatures yet maintained power and potable water, at least from my limited knowledge.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

gbasden wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:48 pmI haven't seen stories about equivalent misery in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma or New Mexico. They got the same frigid temperatures yet maintained power and potable water, at least from my limited knowledge.
Yep though I expect there were some spot outages there.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Little Raven »

gbasden wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:48 pmI haven't seen stories about equivalent misery in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma or New Mexico. They got the same frigid temperatures yet maintained power and potable water, at least from my limited knowledge.
Las Cruces, where my parents live, is just on the other side of the NM border.

They got to 55 yesterday. We never broke freezing. I can't speak for the states east to us, but what NM got is absolutely nothing like what we were hammered with.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by stimpy »

I apologize to Ted Cruz.
It appears he went to Cancun to lasso the sun and bring it back to Texas.
The hero we need!!!

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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

He is playing the kid card. Only the best!

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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Smoove_B »

But why was school cancelled for the week? You're telling me during a crisis, your daughter's immediate reaction is to take a vaycay and your response as a Senator is to act as her chaperone? GTFO you disingenuous sack of crap.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by LordMortis »

Smoove_B wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:19 pm But why was school cancelled for the week? You're telling me during a crisis, your daughter's immediate reaction is to take a vaycay and your response as a Senator is to act as her chaperone? GTFO you disingenuous sack of crap.
The alternative...

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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Carpet_pissr »

malchior wrote:we very well might catch our politicians working for the people whose lights didn't get turned off instead of everyone else.
I’ll assume that’s just poorly worded. :D
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:31 pm
malchior wrote:we very well might catch our politicians working for the people whose lights didn't get turned off instead of everyone else.
I’ll assume that’s just poorly worded. :D
Haha I meant red-handed. They usually at least pretend they are doing the people's work.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by gbasden »

Little Raven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:57 pm
gbasden wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:48 pmI haven't seen stories about equivalent misery in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma or New Mexico. They got the same frigid temperatures yet maintained power and potable water, at least from my limited knowledge.
Las Cruces, where my parents live, is just on the other side of the NM border.

They got to 55 yesterday. We never broke freezing. I can't speak for the states east to us, but what NM got is absolutely nothing like what we were hammered with.
Could be - I wasn't paying a ton of attention. In a quick search, it looks like a lot of surrounding areas got similar weather, though.

Baton Rouge - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa ... e/historic
Little Rock - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa ... k/historic
Tulsa - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/tulsa/historic

Lots of days of single digit high temperatures.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Blackhawk »

malchior wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:00 pm He is playing the kid card. Only the best!

Of course it's bullshit. Even glancing at it shows it's bullshit. But that's not the point - the people who support him don't need to be convinced, they just need to be given an excuse to ignore it. It worked for Trump, it works for Cruz.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by TheMix »

Smoove_B wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:19 pm But why was school cancelled for the week? You're telling me during a crisis, your daughter's immediate reaction is to take a vaycay and your response as a Senator is to act as her chaperone? GTFO you disingenuous sack of crap.
I hope that someone is able to dig up info on when tickets were purchased. And when if some return tickets had their dates changed...

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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Pyperkub »

ars has their update up for today - probably the best spin-free resource on the actual issues with the grid:
To understand what's going on in Texas, and how things got so bad, you need quite a bit of arcane knowledge—including everything from weather and history to the details of grid structure and how natural gas contracts are organized. We've gathered details on as much of this as possible, and we also talked to grid expert Jeff Dagle at Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL). What follows is an attempt to organize and understand an ongoing, and still somewhat chaotic, situation.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Little Raven »

Great article, Pyper. Thanks for posting.
"Clearly, they didn't do enough," Dagle told Ars, "but I don't know how fair it is to be too critical."
But judging from this forum, this Dagle guy doesn't know what he's talking about. :lol:
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by LordMortis »

Little Raven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:06 pm Great article, Pyper. Thanks for posting.
"Clearly, they didn't do enough," Dagle told Ars, "but I don't know how fair it is to be too critical."
But judging from this forum, this Dagle guy doesn't know what he's talking about. :lol:
He re-inforced my bias suggested my questions from complete ignorance are the ones that should be asked so he must know what he's talking about. :D
Key steps will still need to be taken months from now. That's when the data should be gathered to analyze what went wrong and figure out how to build a more resilient—and necessarily more expensive—grid. It may also involve Texas giving up a bit of its "go it alone" attitude and forging deeper connections with neighbors, possibly accepting a greater degree of federal oversight. Dagle told Ars that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which sets standards for the combined US-Canadian grids, has new standards out for cold-weather operations. These might provide a useful guide for how to avoid events like this in the future, but the standards aren't mandatory yet.

Dagle highlighted the concept of resilience. "Resilience is imagining the things that could go wrong and making sure that we're prepared to accommodate that," he said. That means thinking beyond simply matching the last major cold wave. "Maybe we could have done a better job envisioning temperatures even more extreme than what we saw last time," he said. "Have we put enough counter measures there to handle that?"

While such resilience might make electricity somewhat more expensive, it's also a strong insurance policy against the staggering losses that are being incurred with most of the state shut down entirely.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

Little Raven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:06 pm Great article, Pyper. Thanks for posting.
"Clearly, they didn't do enough," Dagle told Ars, "but I don't know how fair it is to be too critical."
But judging from this forum, this Dagle guy doesn't know what he's talking about. :lol:
I actually think he absolutely knows what he is talking about but he is specifically talking about the technical/operational side of things. He isn't talking about market supply incentives, reliability oversight, or the missing regulatory powers compared to other ISOs. I absolutely want to hear his thoughts about how *this black box* failed but my commercial experience in that specific market knows that is only part of the picture.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by noxiousdog »

malchior wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:09 pm36 hours? Wut? Maybe it's just pockets now but it has been at least 72 hours so far. ERCOT is still reporting EEA3 meaning they are demanding rolling outages still. It isn't resolved yet.

Edit: Just looked - they issued the EEA3 at 1 AM CST on Monday. So they've been in their most critical alert period for...80+ hours. Again this is unprecedented scale.

The gap between forecast and actual is pretty wide...because they haven't turned up big portions of the grid. I am actively talking to someone in the dark via Slack on his phone because his power is still off in Houston *right now*. And another in San Antonio *right now*. They are actually chatting about solar/battery systems while they dial for plumbers and are trying to flexseal pipes. Side note: Flexseal doesn't work. Shocker.
I mathed wrong. Three days for 90% of the folks... which is much lower that almost a week.

Also note, had they done rolling blackouts as I mentioned earlier, the frozen pipe incidents would have been dramatically lowered.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:15 pm
malchior wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:09 pm36 hours? Wut? Maybe it's just pockets now but it has been at least 72 hours so far. ERCOT is still reporting EEA3 meaning they are demanding rolling outages still. It isn't resolved yet.

Edit: Just looked - they issued the EEA3 at 1 AM CST on Monday. So they've been in their most critical alert period for...80+ hours. Again this is unprecedented scale.

The gap between forecast and actual is pretty wide...because they haven't turned up big portions of the grid. I am actively talking to someone in the dark via Slack on his phone because his power is still off in Houston *right now*. And another in San Antonio *right now*. They are actually chatting about solar/battery systems while they dial for plumbers and are trying to flexseal pipes. Side note: Flexseal doesn't work. Shocker.
I mathed wrong. Three days for 90% of the folks... which is much lower that almost a week.

Also note, had they done rolling blackouts as I mentioned earlier, the frozen pipe incidents would have been dramatically lowered.
We are talking about two different things then. The general grid having rolling black outs since 1 AM CST on Monday is a lot more pertinent to understand the health of the grid. Again you won't find any event where you have rolling blackouts across 90% of a state for 84 hours (as of now).
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by noxiousdog »

gbasden wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:46 pm
Little Raven wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:57 pm
gbasden wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:48 pmI haven't seen stories about equivalent misery in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma or New Mexico. They got the same frigid temperatures yet maintained power and potable water, at least from my limited knowledge.
Las Cruces, where my parents live, is just on the other side of the NM border.

They got to 55 yesterday. We never broke freezing. I can't speak for the states east to us, but what NM got is absolutely nothing like what we were hammered with.
Could be - I wasn't paying a ton of attention. In a quick search, it looks like a lot of surrounding areas got similar weather, though.

Baton Rouge - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa ... e/historic
Little Rock - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa ... k/historic
Tulsa - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/tulsa/historic

Lots of days of single digit high temperatures.
Tulsa and Little Rock have single digit highs (nearly?) every year.

It's out of character for Baton Rouge for sure, but they had a lot of outages as well even though they are on a winterized grid.
Black Lives Matter

"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by noxiousdog »

malchior wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:22 pm Also note, had they done rolling blackouts as I mentioned earlier, the frozen pipe incidents would have been dramatically lowered.
We are talking about two different things then. The general grid having rolling black outs since 1 AM CST on Monday is a lot more pertinent to understand the health of the grid. Again you won't find any event where you have rolling blackouts across 90% of a state for 84 hours (as of now).
[/quote]

They (well, in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) didn't have rolling blackouts, which is the problem. They just turned folks off for days. Rolling blackouts would have kept houses above freezing and prevented broken pipes. I suspect this is because they were afraid they'd bring their whole grid down if it was attempted. I'm skeptical as rolling blackouts have been a thing when there is low power for as long as I can remember.

Also, you need to separate what is happening now, infrastructure issues (line repairs, transformers, etc) from the supply issues. Supply has been solved.
Black Lives Matter

"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:42 pmThey (well, in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) didn't have rolling blackouts, which is the problem. They just turned folks off for days. Rolling blackouts would have kept houses above freezing and prevented broken pipes. I suspect this is because they were afraid they'd bring their whole grid down if it was attempted. I'm skeptical as rolling blackouts have been a thing when there is low power for as long as I can remember.
Frankly there is no way to know that is true with regard to rolling outages helping with pipes. It depends on how long the cycle is and how long they stay up.

Stability might have been a concern but it seems more likely their plans were out of date and they weren't sure *who to roll*. Like I said earlier I read an account that they designated whole areas as critical (in Austin at least). Also loss of control is definitely possible. Meaning they couldn't remotely control distribution adequately. That is only stuff you can guess at without a full accounting. There are oo many explanations.
Also, you need to separate what is happening now, infrastructure issues (line repairs, transformers, etc) from the supply issues. Supply has been solved.
This is absolutely not true. If the supply issue has been solve then why is ERCOT still in the EEA3 status (as you can see at this moment on ERCOT's front page)? The criteria to move from EEA3 to EEA2B or better is based on the supply available to the system versus forecast demand.

Edit: I see that they released a press release that they are allowing transmission to step back in. My guess is they probably will pull back the EEA3 fully once they know the grid is stable. FWIW this is very unusual. They are hedging a bit on not backing up to at least EEA2B. Though they still are reporting 40 GW of forced out generation so you're still in a precarious state. Hopefully it'll stabilize.
Last edited by malchior on Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by noxiousdog »

malchior wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:51 pmThis is absolutely not true. If the supply issue has been solve then why is ERCOT still in the EEA3 status (as you can see at this moment on ERCOT's front page)? The criteria to move from EEA3 to EEA2B or better is based on the supply available to the system versus forecast demand.

Edit: I see that they released a press release that they are allowing transmission to step back in. My guess is they probably will pull back the EEA3 fully once they know the grid is stable. FWIW this is very unusual. They are hedging a bit on not backing up to at least EEA2B.

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225742
Customers that remain without power likely fall into one of these three categories:

Areas out due to ice storm damage on the distribution system
Areas that were taken out of service due to the energy emergency load shed that need to be restored manually (i.e., sending a crew to the location to reenergize the line)
Large industrial facilities that voluntarily went offline to help during this energy emergency
Transmission owners are assessing how many customers are affected at this time.

While there is no additional load shed occurring at this time, a little over 40,000 MW of generation remains on forced outage due to this winter weather event. Of that, 23,500 MW is thermal generation and the rest is wind and solar. It is possible that some level of rotating outages may be needed over the next couple of days to keep the grid stable.
So, "absolutely not true" is mostly true. And right, this whole thing is very unusual. There were a lot of bad decisions made. I hope we learn from them.
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"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:59 pm
malchior wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:51 pmThis is absolutely not true. If the supply issue has been solve then why is ERCOT still in the EEA3 status (as you can see at this moment on ERCOT's front page)? The criteria to move from EEA3 to EEA2B or better is based on the supply available to the system versus forecast demand.

Edit: I see that they released a press release that they are allowing transmission to step back in. My guess is they probably will pull back the EEA3 fully once they know the grid is stable. FWIW this is very unusual. They are hedging a bit on not backing up to at least EEA2B.

http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225742
Customers that remain without power likely fall into one of these three categories:

Areas out due to ice storm damage on the distribution system
Areas that were taken out of service due to the energy emergency load shed that need to be restored manually (i.e., sending a crew to the location to reenergize the line)
Large industrial facilities that voluntarily went offline to help during this energy emergency
Transmission owners are assessing how many customers are affected at this time.

While there is no additional load shed occurring at this time, a little over 40,000 MW of generation remains on forced outage due to this winter weather event. Of that, 23,500 MW is thermal generation and the rest is wind and solar. It is possible that some level of rotating outages may be needed over the next couple of days to keep the grid stable.
So, "absolutely not true" is mostly true.
Yep - sorry about that. As I noted they are sending out conflicting information. If you are looking at the official dashboard...versus the newswire.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

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I think Ted is back home. He'll fix it.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Daehawk wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:34 pm I think Ted is back home. He'll fix it.
LOL - that to me is the most hilarious part of "CaboGate". What the F is Ted F'ing Cruz going to do to help ANYbody or anything regarding this issue? At best he'll just get on a Fox news segment and blast the windmills again, and how going green is killing the country, one snowstorm at a time.

And I don't want to hear the word "optics" - just think of the situations he's been involved in where "optics were suboptimal". NO. ONE. CARES. As long as he has an (R) or (Q) after his name, it literally doesn't matter what he does. He and Lindsey Graham are eerily similar in that regard. Just shitbird awful, but they LOVE to hate liberals, so keep voting for them. That's all it takes.

Both are supremely cowardly, and actually not that popular even with Republicans in their own states, but as long as they have a few very tough sounding sound bytes excoriating Pelosi or some liberal, or liberals in general, or the MSM, that's all they need to win. Again, and again and again.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Daehawk »

Real time power operating map.
U.S. Electric System Operating Data

Wow look at all those bubbles in Florida..geez. Im on TVA.

And a real time power outage map.
https://poweroutage.us/
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

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Thank the Lord. I can finally turn my thermostat up from "ice box" to "vegetable chiller."
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

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:clap:
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Little Raven »

Yeah. The good news is that most of our power infrastructure has merely been frozen, not destroyed, so once it warmed up a bit things came back online very rapidly. There are still people without power where transformers have exploded or lines came down with ice, but now that the roads are becoming navigable again, we should be able to get repair crews to where they need to be. Power wise, I suspect we'll be more or less fully online within a couple of days.

Water is going to be slower. A LOT of pipes have burst all over the place, in everything from houses to apartment complexes to water treatment plants. That's going to be a big cleanup job, and I honestly have no idea how long that's going to take.

I never lost water, although our water pressure got VERY low at one point and it's still nowhere near what it usually is. But it's enough to be functional, so no complaints.
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stessier
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by stessier »

As if losing power wasn't enough - good luck paying for what you are using.
Dallas resident DeAndre Upshaw said it was "very shocking" when he opened his latest electricity bill.

"While I'm trying to get gas and groceries and make sure that my pipes don't explode, the last thing I'm thinking about is a $7,000 bill from my utility company," Upshaw told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield via Skype Saturday.
People have the option to choose fix or market rate plans, so I guess this is their own doing. Still not a good look.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Daehawk »

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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Smoove_B »

Just learned that the state of TX is one of 11 (?) that doesn't require carbon monoxide detectors in homes. I continue to take things for granted living where I live and just assumed that was a universal law that all states would have adopted.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Lassr »

stessier wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:14 am As if losing power wasn't enough - good luck paying for what you are using.
Dallas resident DeAndre Upshaw said it was "very shocking" when he opened his latest electricity bill.

"While I'm trying to get gas and groceries and make sure that my pipes don't explode, the last thing I'm thinking about is a $7,000 bill from my utility company," Upshaw told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield via Skype Saturday.
People have the option to choose fix or market rate plans, so I guess this is their own doing. Still not a good look.
I'd flip the main breaker and turn off the power to my house and join the others that are suffering. Suffering in the cold will only be a week or so, suffering to pay those utility bills will be much longer. Of course I'd never sign up for market based pricing anyhow, just like I never sign up for variable rate loans.
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by malchior »

Lassr wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 12:05 pm
stessier wrote: Sun Feb 21, 2021 7:14 am As if losing power wasn't enough - good luck paying for what you are using.
Dallas resident DeAndre Upshaw said it was "very shocking" when he opened his latest electricity bill.

"While I'm trying to get gas and groceries and make sure that my pipes don't explode, the last thing I'm thinking about is a $7,000 bill from my utility company," Upshaw told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield via Skype Saturday.
People have the option to choose fix or market rate plans, so I guess this is their own doing. Still not a good look.
I'd flip the main breaker and turn off the power to my house and join the others that are suffering. Suffering in the cold will only be a week or so, suffering to pay those utility bills will be much longer. Of course I'd never sign up for market based pricing anyhow, just like I never sign up for variable rate loans.
While I agree I wouldn't sign up, I also think there should be a *little bit* of consumer protection. Rates are normally sub-$100 per MWh - ERCOT says about $26/MWh. Who'd reasonably know they'd be potentially subject to rate up to 350 times worse if it spikes to the max $9000 per MWh?
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Re: Texas Power Grid Collapse 2021

Post by Blackhawk »

And how many of them really understood that was the risk they were taking? I'm sure the pamphlets pushed the savings hard, but minimized the warnings of what could happen if things went badly (or stuck them in the legalese fine print.)
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