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Read a little closer... >“The operators who took those actions to prevent a catastrophic blackout and much worse damage to our system, that was, I would say, t
by nimbius 6y ago
Read a little closer...
>“The operators who took those actions to prevent a catastrophic blackout and much worse damage to our system, that was, I would say, the most difficult decision that had to be made throughout this whole event," Magness said.
>"At the end of the day, our operators are highly trained and have the authority to make decisions that protect the reliability of the electric system,"
strongly implies ERCOT had absolutely no working plan to deal with this issue and instead relied on observance and skill of operators to save them from complete and total blackout.
CAISO is an example of how this should work. it has detailed and thorough plans for high winds, inclement weather, earthquake, fires tsunami and flood. If there is an ISO flex alert for customers to save energy or a blackout is planned, its generally forecast with days to spare. Operators and plants are shut down and restarted in a coordinated, orderly fashion with excellent communication and transparency. CAISO even takes into account climate change and will mail out free coupons for bagged ice for users in a shut-down area along with maps to cooling centers or warming centers if need be.
http://www.caiso.com/ http://www.caiso.com/
- enkid 6y agoWhile I agree with what you are saying,we should keep in mind that people tend to sensationalize and emphasize the human element. This in turn would make it seem like it is a closer and less procedures process than it really was. Bottom line, we should probably take a statement like that with a grain of salt.
- munk-a 6y agoI don't have a great view of humanity as a whole - so if this disaster was avoided because we had particularly skilled people in the right place at the right time I applaud them but think that system really needs to be unbroken. By default I assume that someone in a position to make a critical decision at a critical time is going to be incompetent and won't trust a system that doesn't have a good set of safeguards - ideally regulated into being present.
- rhodozelia 6y agoparticularly skilled people go in to grid operation control rooms, power plant control rooms, airplane cockpits, etc, all over the world every day. This is their career. They are trained to deal with failures of the system they operate and to take over control from the automatic systems when the computers can't make the right decision.
- mschaef 6y ago> strongly implies ERCOT had absolutely no working plan Another way of looking at it is that they implemented phase 3 of this plan: http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/current_guides/53525/04-030119.doc http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/current_guides/53525/04-030... "absolutely no working plan" would look different.... which is the point of the article. > to deal with this issue and instead relied on observance and skill of operators to save them from complete and total blackout. Sometimes the operators have to intervene to keep things running. In in big moments like this, and many, many, many smaller moments you never even notice.
- hnburnsy 6y agoHow about... "Highly trained and well equipped fire fighters save neighborhood from burning down"