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This current problems wouldn’t be fixed if Texas wasn’t on its own grid. The Texas grid does have connections to the other grids, and even right now is importin

This current problems wouldn’t be fixed if Texas wasn’t on its own grid. The Texas grid does have connections to the other grids, and even right now is importing power from both the East and West interconnections. The problem is that this is a truly regional event and not just isolated to Texas. The entire central US is struggling right now. The SPP (which manages electricity for Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas, and other states) has been struggling with forced blackouts over the last several days as well. They don’t have enough power for their own grid, let alone enough to share with Texas. If Texas was more interconnected with the SPP, the end result wouldn’t be Texans all having their problems solved. Many Texans would still be without power, but so would many more Oklahomans. The fact that the Texas grid is separate is the only thing keeping OK from having even worse blackouts. Which makes sense, because the entire point of grid isolation is to keep issues localized and not cascade over the entire network. And that’s working to Oklahoma’s benefit right now, but Texas is getting the short end of the stick.

aardvarkr 6y ago
FYI the Texas grid runs on a different frequency than the other two grids and as a result incurs MASSIVE efficiency penalties for that hubris. If I recall correctly it has to be converted from AC to DC then back to Texas’ AC.
- txlpo78 6y ago
  Yes, that’s correct. Texas has 5 ties to the western/eastern US interconnections as well as with the Mexico grid. But none of that matters right now because those grids don’t have excess capacity to send to Texas anyway.
  - stefan_ 6y ago
    They have absolutely 0MW capacity that they would be willing to put online to earn millions an hour? Seems unlikely.
  - teraflop 6y ago
    It's not really a matter of whether the grids have capacity; the ties themselves can only handle a limited amount of power. As per ERCOT's status page, both of the high-voltage DC ties between Texas are currently operating at >99% of their rated capacity, and they have been every time I've checked since yesterday. They're not being limited by the availability of power from the other side.
    - txlpo78 6y ago
      You’re missing the point. Even if the ties had more capacity, the supply of power on the other side of the ties is not there. It’s a two-pronged issue, and you won’t solve the problem by only focusing on one of the prongs.
      - margalabargala 6y ago
        It seems highly unlikely that exactly 100% of the capacity of the interconnects is, coincidentally, precisely equal to the amount of excess power available to be fed into the interconnects at the moment. Do you have anything to back up this extraordinary claim?
        txlpo78 6y ago
        Did anyone make that claim? No. Go re-read my comment and try again.
        margalabargala 6y ago
        Yes, you did. Per the comment you replied to: > As per ERCOT's status page, both of the high-voltage DC ties between Texas are currently operating at >99% of their rated capacity So as of that comment, either the amount of power available on the other side was equal to >99% of capacity, or it was greater than capacity. The situation has changed now and neighboring states have had to drop the amount provided to interconnects, but as of the earlier comment, more interconnects would have helped. Your turn to try again I suppose
      - deleted 6y ago
  - teclordphrack2 6y ago
    Texas grid sucks. Deal with it. Everyone keeps pointing out its failings and you keep trying to defend it. Quit putting your head in the sand snowflake.
- quickthrowman 6y ago
  You recall correctly, and interestingly, the same method is used for variable-frequency drive motor controllers
- O5vYtytb 6y ago
  Technically they run on at different phase, but the same frequency (60hz)
mike_d 6y ago
This is not correct. Because the Texas grid is isolated, the frequency is not synced with the two other major grids and cannot import electricity at any meaningful capacity. (See http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/frequencymap.html http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/frequencymap.html) Frequency conversion is a costly and difficult to scale problem. If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for example. Texas also could have contributed to help the California power shortages last year. Edit: Here is a map of the grid interconnects in Texas with capacity. As of the time of this comment the total importation capacity is less than 1% of demand. https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22095643/49019079-55627a00-f18d-11e8-881a-922ffc211eed.png https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22095643/49019079-...
- txlpo78 6y ago
  Nothing I said in my comment is incorrect. Texas has 5 different connections with the other grids and can import/export through them. But they are irrelevant right now because the other grids do not have enough spare capacity to send to Texas. >If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for example. Texas also could have contributed to help the California power shortages last year. No. That’s not how the grids work. Just because Oklahoma and Washington are part of the same interconnection, that does not mean that people living in Tulsa can pull power as needed from a dam in Washington, which is why Oklahomans are struggling with power outages today as well. Most power still must be generated locally. Long distance transmission is difficult and inefficient, and often requires converting to DC just like a grid-to-grid connection requires, so you have the same issues as you have when you’re on separate grids.
  - reportingsjr 6y ago
    This does not seem to be true at all. If you look at a power outage map of Texas you can actually see exactly where the ERCOT boundaries are. Everyone else in Texas that's on the other, federal, grids, are not experiencing widespread power outages. https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/landing_pages/89373/ERCOT-Internconnection_Branded.jpg http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/landing_pages/89373/ERCOT-I... https://poweroutage.us/area/state/oklahoma https://poweroutage.us/area/state/oklahoma Per your comment about long distance transmission, that doesn't matter in a situation like this. If you're on a large grid you don't necessarily need to transmit power to Oklahoma all of the way from the PNW. You need the areas surrounding OK to supply excess power to them, then those surrounding areas can get whatever excess they may need from slightly further areas. This needs less and less excess as you go further since every area is over provisioned. Eventually at some point, yes, the PNW may be supplying excess power to states around them as a result of Oklahoma having outages, but that power isn't going straight from PNW to OK.
deleted 6y ago
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7thaccount 6y ago
I tried to say the same above. When the entire south is low on capacity, being fully AC interconnected probably doesn't help much even if the DC ties had more capacity.
- deleted 6y ago
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austinheap 6y ago
This is a two day old account repeating exactly one trope FWIW.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Yes, basically Texas is great, this situation was unavoidable, nobody did anything wrong, and people should just suck it up.
ineedasername 6y ago
A few limited connections are not sufficient to fully take advantage of all areas of the country where there may be extra capacity. It wouldn't solve the problem, but would have helped. Oklahoma for example has been able to stop rolling blackouts. Texas is still deep in this.

aardvarkr 6y ago

FYI the Texas grid runs on a different frequency than the other two grids and as a result incurs MASSIVE efficiency penalties for that hubris. If I recall correctly it has to be converted from AC to DC then back to Texas’ AC.

txlpo78 6y ago
Yes, that’s correct. Texas has 5 ties to the western/eastern US interconnections as well as with the Mexico grid. But none of that matters right now because those grids don’t have excess capacity to send to Texas anyway.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  They have absolutely 0MW capacity that they would be willing to put online to earn millions an hour? Seems unlikely.
- teraflop 6y ago
  It's not really a matter of whether the grids have capacity; the ties themselves can only handle a limited amount of power. As per ERCOT's status page, both of the high-voltage DC ties between Texas are currently operating at >99% of their rated capacity, and they have been every time I've checked since yesterday. They're not being limited by the availability of power from the other side.
  - txlpo78 6y ago
    You’re missing the point. Even if the ties had more capacity, the supply of power on the other side of the ties is not there. It’s a two-pronged issue, and you won’t solve the problem by only focusing on one of the prongs.
    - margalabargala 6y ago
      It seems highly unlikely that exactly 100% of the capacity of the interconnects is, coincidentally, precisely equal to the amount of excess power available to be fed into the interconnects at the moment. Do you have anything to back up this extraordinary claim?
      - txlpo78 6y ago
        Did anyone make that claim? No. Go re-read my comment and try again.
        margalabargala 6y ago
        Yes, you did. Per the comment you replied to: > As per ERCOT's status page, both of the high-voltage DC ties between Texas are currently operating at >99% of their rated capacity So as of that comment, either the amount of power available on the other side was equal to >99% of capacity, or it was greater than capacity. The situation has changed now and neighboring states have had to drop the amount provided to interconnects, but as of the earlier comment, more interconnects would have helped. Your turn to try again I suppose
    - deleted 6y ago
- teclordphrack2 6y ago
  Texas grid sucks. Deal with it. Everyone keeps pointing out its failings and you keep trying to defend it. Quit putting your head in the sand snowflake.
quickthrowman 6y ago
You recall correctly, and interestingly, the same method is used for variable-frequency drive motor controllers
O5vYtytb 6y ago
Technically they run on at different phase, but the same frequency (60hz)

mike_d 6y ago

This is not correct. Because the Texas grid is isolated, the frequency is not synced with the two other major grids and cannot import electricity at any meaningful capacity. (See http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/frequencymap.html http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/frequencymap.html) Frequency conversion is a costly and difficult to scale problem. If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for example. Texas also could have contributed to help the California power shortages last year. Edit: Here is a map of the grid interconnects in Texas with capacity. As of the time of this comment the total importation capacity is less than 1% of demand. https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22095643/49019079-55627a00-f18d-11e8-881a-922ffc211eed.png https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22095643/49019079-...

txlpo78 6y ago
Nothing I said in my comment is incorrect. Texas has 5 different connections with the other grids and can import/export through them. But they are irrelevant right now because the other grids do not have enough spare capacity to send to Texas. >If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for example. Texas also could have contributed to help the California power shortages last year. No. That’s not how the grids work. Just because Oklahoma and Washington are part of the same interconnection, that does not mean that people living in Tulsa can pull power as needed from a dam in Washington, which is why Oklahomans are struggling with power outages today as well. Most power still must be generated locally. Long distance transmission is difficult and inefficient, and often requires converting to DC just like a grid-to-grid connection requires, so you have the same issues as you have when you’re on separate grids.
- reportingsjr 6y ago
  This does not seem to be true at all. If you look at a power outage map of Texas you can actually see exactly where the ERCOT boundaries are. Everyone else in Texas that's on the other, federal, grids, are not experiencing widespread power outages. https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/landing_pages/89373/ERCOT-Internconnection_Branded.jpg http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/landing_pages/89373/ERCOT-I... https://poweroutage.us/area/state/oklahoma https://poweroutage.us/area/state/oklahoma Per your comment about long distance transmission, that doesn't matter in a situation like this. If you're on a large grid you don't necessarily need to transmit power to Oklahoma all of the way from the PNW. You need the areas surrounding OK to supply excess power to them, then those surrounding areas can get whatever excess they may need from slightly further areas. This needs less and less excess as you go further since every area is over provisioned. Eventually at some point, yes, the PNW may be supplying excess power to states around them as a result of Oklahoma having outages, but that power isn't going straight from PNW to OK.

deleted 6y ago

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7thaccount 6y ago

I tried to say the same above. When the entire south is low on capacity, being fully AC interconnected probably doesn't help much even if the DC ties had more capacity.

deleted 6y ago
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austinheap 6y ago

This is a two day old account repeating exactly one trope FWIW.

ineedasername 6y ago
Yes, basically Texas is great, this situation was unavoidable, nobody did anything wrong, and people should just suck it up.

ineedasername 6y ago

A few limited connections are not sufficient to fully take advantage of all areas of the country where there may be extra capacity. It wouldn't solve the problem, but would have helped. Oklahoma for example has been able to stop rolling blackouts. Texas is still deep in this.