7 ms·

I understand that natural gas plants were just as impacted by the storm as renewables (https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/ https://

I understand that natural gas plants were just as impacted by the storm as renewables (https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-storm/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/natural-gas-power-st...) so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith

irjustin 6y ago
Yes, the loud politicians have always been painting this as a Green/Wind vs Fossil problem as soon as the storm hit and that the solution is Fossil. It's frustrating because unlike other debates - the underlying truth is quite clear. Cold temperatures affected both Natural Gas & Wind bringing both power types[0]. Winterizing both can be beneficial. Wind can operating in those temperatures just fine[1]. It wouldn't be cheap, but winterizing gas lines isn't either. It's being turned into a left vs right issue by those who choose to ignore facts and outright lie to push their own agendas. It actually saddens and frustrates me because a non-partisan issue is being turned into one. Our country has become hyper partisan and this one doesn't need to be. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-wind-turbines-in-cold-climates-dont-freeze-de-icing-and-carbon-fiber/?sh=77471d871f59 https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-w...
- arethuza 6y ago
  That Practical Engineering video (the first link) is excellent - in fact I would recommend the entire channel.
- willis936 6y ago
  The right are not interested in regulation. Treating power as a utility is the government overreaching on the free market. It was a left vs right issue before the power went out. The right are just in a weak political position because they are responsible for a disaster and want to control the narrative.
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    The Republicans control most of the statehouses, while the Democrats barely hold together a weak majority in Congress. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say the right has a weak political position.
    - willis936 6y ago
      Semantics. My point is that it costs political capital to be responsible for an easily avoidable disaster.
      - adamcstephens 6y ago
        They’re not semantics, my comment is about power and who is willing to wield it. Republicans will still vote for Republicans even when avoidable disasters happen. There are two choices, and they’re not going to give a shit that Democrats were slightly less bad on the subject.
        willis936 6y ago
        So you’re saying it does not cost political capital to be responsible for policies that caused a disaster? Where’s the good faith in this discussion or the people who suffered the disaster?
        adamcstephens 6y ago
        It doesn’t truly cost, no. What was the cost to the Iraq war, or the deregulation of Wall Street in the 90s? The public has a short memory, and few choices. I don’t have to agree with this in order to recognize it.
- doggodaddo78 6y ago
  Oil and ff interests bought them some politicians laying down FUD at press-conferences and policies just how industry wants them.
jeltz 6y ago
If they worry do much about storms wouldn't nuclear be the best option? Hydro is also pretty resilient.
- p_l 6y ago
  At least one reactor had to be shut down as well, because the cooling tower froze. Winterizing is the answer, no matter the power source.
- hef19898 6y ago
  That still leaves the grid to worry about. Even if the power plant doesn't have issue, if grid lines fail (temperature, wind, snow, ice,...) the power will still be lost. Nulear power plants have problems with freezing temperature (frozen rivers are bad to get cooling water from) and high temps / dry weather (again, low river levels are bad to get cooling water from. That is obviously less of a problem in case nuclear power plants are build on the coast. It is also worth to note, that other countries, Canada, Russia, Northern Europe, et... have nowhere near the problems Texas had.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > It is also worth to note, that other countries, Canada, Russia, Northern Europe, et... have nowhere near the problems Texas had. Well, of course. There was no problem of "it's cold". The problem was "it's colder than we expected". You don't prepare for things that don't happen. This actually reminds me of a comment I saw on the topic of international shipping: "Slow is fine. Late is not." The goal isn't to arrive quickly, it's to arrive when you said you would get there. And analogously for the temperature.
    - XorNot 6y ago
      Except Texas was warned this would happen again after it happened in 2011 and the conclusion was the same: cold weather proof your infrastructure. Naturally of course, the state did nothing to make this happen.
    - 6y ago
makomk 6y ago
Yeah, the big problem is the death of coal power. Coal power plants can stockpile enough fuel to run for a good while no matter the weather. Natural gas power plants cannot; they rely on a continuous supply of gas, and it turns out that every part of the Texas natural gas supply chain is vulnerable to cold weather and power outages. Fixing this will be slow, incredibly expensive, probably increase CO2 emissions and decrease the cost-effectiveness of gas (because they need to rely on natural gas to compress and pump the gas rather than cheaper electricity from wind power that might not be there).
- croes 6y ago
  Coal power is part of the problem in the first place.
- XorNot 6y ago
  A nuclear plant went offline due to the recent event. Pretending this has anything at all to do with the type of power generation, instead of properly weatherizing infrastructure is absurd.
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    If the grid frequency is not stable enough (i.e. demand outstrips supply) any type of power plant will trip off line when the protection circuitry kicks in. Anything else risks damage to transformers and industrial machinery downstream.
    - delfinom 6y ago
      No you don't understand, the plant didn't trip. The nuclear plant's turbines were literally on the "roof" of the reactor complex completely in the open. Nuclear regulations only require the reactor itself to be enclosed and protected. No shit the turbines froze over. They ignored reports advising them to fully enclose the plant for years.
      - jjk166 6y ago
bsder 6y ago
>it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith You expected otherwise from Goobernor Abboot? This is a huge distraction in the hope that people won't demand fundamental things like: 1) Fixing the electrical grid to the level that the Feds pointed out needed to be done in a report from 10 years ago the last time this happened. This isn't just winterizing the grid, but also having enough fine grained control that you could shed enough load to do rolling blackouts. The Texas grid doesn't have enough fine control so too many extra things are on the same circuits as "essential" services and the grid simply couldn't shed enough load without pulling the plug on things like hospitals. It also doesn't help that residences just use fundamentally less electricity nowadays thanks to LED lighting and efficient appliances. Pulling the plug on residences just isn't a big enough lever anymore. 2) Giving ERCOT real statutory authority so that it can actual compel actions as opposed to being the toothless political sinecure it currently is. ERCOT couldn't do jack shit when everything went to hell because it has no authority to compel anybody to do what they need to do. For example, the only way ERCOT could force some industrial plants offline that were refusing to shut down was to artificially raise the electrical prices instead of being able to give an order to summarily force shutdown. But hey, "Regulation bad. Fox News say so."
electronWizard 6y ago
This article from Mises actually goes into the numbers, demand was up 24% compared to normal and natural gas made up most of the short fall. https://mises.org/wire/wind-power-disaster-texas-no-matter-what-paul-krugman-says https://mises.org/wire/wind-power-disaster-texas-no-matter-w... The author compares the day of the Texas Energy Crisis to the same day of the previous year, but I'm taking his word that this is a fair representation of an average mid-February day for the Texas power grid. There were issues with some natural gas generators having supply issues due to the cold weather, but natural gas provided 91% more electricity (measured in MWh) compared to an average winters day, and was down only 7% from what it provides during the peak summer demand. Wind was down 72% compared to an average winters day. Renewables do have some downsides despite all their benefits, and maybe there should be an honest discussion about how public policy should address this. Subsidies for intermittent energy supplies should probably be partly contingent on also providing grid storage.
- soco 6y ago
  There are wind farms currently running in Alaska[1] which is arguably colder than Texas. The cold-related downsides seem to be well known and already addressed, so it's definitely not a technical issue here. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Alaska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Alaska
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    It's a technical issue because the investment and power required to for the deicing necessary greatly reduces their efficiency. It's an interesting question if Texas should require all turbines to have deicing capabilities which are almost never used.
    - enraged_camel 6y ago
      >> It's a technical issue because the investment and power required to for the deicing necessary greatly reduces their efficiency. Interesting. Can you provide sources for reading?
- 6y ago
jillesvangurp 6y ago
According to this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733 about 30GW of coal and gas was taken offline and about 16GW of renewables. Peak demand was 69GW. So, gas and coal affected represented about 43+% of the total demand for energy. Coal piles froze and reduced capacity (shoveling wet coal frozen solid is hard). Gas pipes froze because of humidity in the pipes (removing water from gas takes energy). Both are preventable problems of course and commonly dealt with elsewhere. Wind turbines were also affected. That too would have been preventable: weather proofed turbines exist and operate in both polar regions, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, etc. and other places where what happened in Texas can happen any day of the year and does not count as remarkable weather and arguably should have been planned for in Texas where it is rare but not that rare for it to be cold once in a while. The reason for this push for reducing subsidies is simple: wind and solar reduce the demand for more expensive gas and when that peaks, gas plants are not profitable and may even have to shut down temporarily. Coal is already past the point of being even close to credible as a cost effective alternative. It only survives with subsidies, tax benefits, and other forms of government support. Hence recent closures of coal plants across the US even in states where they actually mine coal. It's just too expensive even in places where they have every incentive to pretend otherwise. Wind grows by the MWs of capacity per month in Texas currently. There is a massive investment in it everywhere and that has been going on for years in Texas. Likewise grid solar is also rapidly growing there. It's basically becoming the dominant source of energy. People adding subsidized solar on their roof also put power back in the grid during the most lucrative moments in the day. This presents the dual problem of the grid having to pay for that (to buy it back from consumers) and reducing utilization of their expensive gas and coal plants at the same time. In peaker plant form, operating gas plants becomes even less attractive. Which is why expensive batteries are preferred instead. That's another thing that is growing rapidly in Texas. Batteries are expensive but still preferable to a gas plant that you don't operate most of the time that is really expensive to start and stop. Gas and oil producers dominate politics in Texas because they are such an important part of the local economy. They prefer to let consumers pay for expensive dirty power as much as they can so they can milk the sunk investments of gas and coal plants a bit longer and so they can sell their gas to the electricity providers. So that is two powerful lobbies with a vested interest in the status quo and a big reason for why things are the way they are. For the same reason weather proofing never happened because that would make gas plants even more costly and thus less attractive. Local politicians act in the interest of these powerful lobbies rather than consumers (who got some outrageous bills after the storm to pay for the mistakes by their own representatives). The interest of consumers would of course be lower prices and a cleaner grid (less pollution, reduce CO2 impact). But that directly affects the profitability of gas plants and gas producers. Even without clean energy subsidies this trend will continue of course. Of course when talking subsidies, you have to consider that a lot of that already benefits fossil fuel production and consumption whether it comes in direct form, or in the form of tax benefits, environmental legislation, etc. Cutting that would accelerate the demise of coal and gas plants even further. So, instead, politicians do their best to slow the growth of renewables. In the same way interconnecting the grids to the rest in the US is controversial in Texas because that puts locally expensive producers on the spot.
onpointed 6y ago
While many generation sources were negatively impacted, including natural gas around Feb 15 - natural gas drastically increased generation between February 8 and 22, increasing the overall generation as well as making up for shortfalls in other generation sources. The federal EIA has ok charting and a really good API: https://www.eia.gov/opendata/embed.php?geoset_id=EBA.NG.WAT.HL&type=chart&relation_mode=line&map=none&regions=&series_id=EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.COL.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WAT.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NG.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NUC.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.OTH.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.SUN.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WND.HL&date_mode=range&start=202101&end=20210401&periods= https://api.eia.gov/series/?api_key=<your API key>&series_id=EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.COL.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WAT.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NG.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NUC.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.OTH.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.SUN.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WND.HL&start=20210101&end=20210401 (Get an API key for the second URL from https://www.eia.gov/opendata/commands.php)
taylodl 6y ago
> so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith It's not. The problem was caused by the natural gas plants freezing. Full disclosure: I work in the utility industry and I'm very familiar with ERCOT. Here's the reality: any power bid into the market coming from an "unreliable" source such as wind and solar must be covered by power coming from a natural gas or coal powered plant. Those are ERCOT's rules. By "covered" I mean you must have allocated the reserve off of the capacity market. This bill is based on lies, misconceptions, and deceit.

irjustin 6y ago

Yes, the loud politicians have always been painting this as a Green/Wind vs Fossil problem as soon as the storm hit and that the solution is Fossil. It's frustrating because unlike other debates - the underlying truth is quite clear. Cold temperatures affected both Natural Gas & Wind bringing both power types[0]. Winterizing both can be beneficial. Wind can operating in those temperatures just fine[1]. It wouldn't be cheap, but winterizing gas lines isn't either. It's being turned into a left vs right issue by those who choose to ignore facts and outright lie to push their own agendas. It actually saddens and frustrates me because a non-partisan issue is being turned into one. Our country has become hyper partisan and this one doesn't need to be. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-wind-turbines-in-cold-climates-dont-freeze-de-icing-and-carbon-fiber/?sh=77471d871f59 https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-w...

arethuza 6y ago
That Practical Engineering video (the first link) is excellent - in fact I would recommend the entire channel.
willis936 6y ago
The right are not interested in regulation. Treating power as a utility is the government overreaching on the free market. It was a left vs right issue before the power went out. The right are just in a weak political position because they are responsible for a disaster and want to control the narrative.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  The Republicans control most of the statehouses, while the Democrats barely hold together a weak majority in Congress. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say the right has a weak political position.
  - willis936 6y ago
    Semantics. My point is that it costs political capital to be responsible for an easily avoidable disaster.
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      They’re not semantics, my comment is about power and who is willing to wield it. Republicans will still vote for Republicans even when avoidable disasters happen. There are two choices, and they’re not going to give a shit that Democrats were slightly less bad on the subject.
      - willis936 6y ago
        So you’re saying it does not cost political capital to be responsible for policies that caused a disaster? Where’s the good faith in this discussion or the people who suffered the disaster?
        adamcstephens 6y ago
        It doesn’t truly cost, no. What was the cost to the Iraq war, or the deregulation of Wall Street in the 90s? The public has a short memory, and few choices. I don’t have to agree with this in order to recognize it.
doggodaddo78 6y ago
Oil and ff interests bought them some politicians laying down FUD at press-conferences and policies just how industry wants them.

jeltz 6y ago

If they worry do much about storms wouldn't nuclear be the best option? Hydro is also pretty resilient.

p_l 6y ago
At least one reactor had to be shut down as well, because the cooling tower froze. Winterizing is the answer, no matter the power source.
hef19898 6y ago
That still leaves the grid to worry about. Even if the power plant doesn't have issue, if grid lines fail (temperature, wind, snow, ice,...) the power will still be lost. Nulear power plants have problems with freezing temperature (frozen rivers are bad to get cooling water from) and high temps / dry weather (again, low river levels are bad to get cooling water from. That is obviously less of a problem in case nuclear power plants are build on the coast. It is also worth to note, that other countries, Canada, Russia, Northern Europe, et... have nowhere near the problems Texas had.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > It is also worth to note, that other countries, Canada, Russia, Northern Europe, et... have nowhere near the problems Texas had. Well, of course. There was no problem of "it's cold". The problem was "it's colder than we expected". You don't prepare for things that don't happen. This actually reminds me of a comment I saw on the topic of international shipping: "Slow is fine. Late is not." The goal isn't to arrive quickly, it's to arrive when you said you would get there. And analogously for the temperature.
  - XorNot 6y ago
    Except Texas was warned this would happen again after it happened in 2011 and the conclusion was the same: cold weather proof your infrastructure. Naturally of course, the state did nothing to make this happen.
  - 6y ago

makomk 6y ago

Yeah, the big problem is the death of coal power. Coal power plants can stockpile enough fuel to run for a good while no matter the weather. Natural gas power plants cannot; they rely on a continuous supply of gas, and it turns out that every part of the Texas natural gas supply chain is vulnerable to cold weather and power outages. Fixing this will be slow, incredibly expensive, probably increase CO2 emissions and decrease the cost-effectiveness of gas (because they need to rely on natural gas to compress and pump the gas rather than cheaper electricity from wind power that might not be there).

croes 6y ago
Coal power is part of the problem in the first place.
XorNot 6y ago
A nuclear plant went offline due to the recent event. Pretending this has anything at all to do with the type of power generation, instead of properly weatherizing infrastructure is absurd.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  If the grid frequency is not stable enough (i.e. demand outstrips supply) any type of power plant will trip off line when the protection circuitry kicks in. Anything else risks damage to transformers and industrial machinery downstream.
  - delfinom 6y ago
    No you don't understand, the plant didn't trip. The nuclear plant's turbines were literally on the "roof" of the reactor complex completely in the open. Nuclear regulations only require the reactor itself to be enclosed and protected. No shit the turbines froze over. They ignored reports advising them to fully enclose the plant for years.
    - jjk166 6y ago

bsder 6y ago

>it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith You expected otherwise from Goobernor Abboot? This is a huge distraction in the hope that people won't demand fundamental things like: 1) Fixing the electrical grid to the level that the Feds pointed out needed to be done in a report from 10 years ago the last time this happened. This isn't just winterizing the grid, but also having enough fine grained control that you could shed enough load to do rolling blackouts. The Texas grid doesn't have enough fine control so too many extra things are on the same circuits as "essential" services and the grid simply couldn't shed enough load without pulling the plug on things like hospitals. It also doesn't help that residences just use fundamentally less electricity nowadays thanks to LED lighting and efficient appliances. Pulling the plug on residences just isn't a big enough lever anymore. 2) Giving ERCOT real statutory authority so that it can actual compel actions as opposed to being the toothless political sinecure it currently is. ERCOT couldn't do jack shit when everything went to hell because it has no authority to compel anybody to do what they need to do. For example, the only way ERCOT could force some industrial plants offline that were refusing to shut down was to artificially raise the electrical prices instead of being able to give an order to summarily force shutdown. But hey, "Regulation bad. Fox News say so."

electronWizard 6y ago

This article from Mises actually goes into the numbers, demand was up 24% compared to normal and natural gas made up most of the short fall. https://mises.org/wire/wind-power-disaster-texas-no-matter-what-paul-krugman-says https://mises.org/wire/wind-power-disaster-texas-no-matter-w... The author compares the day of the Texas Energy Crisis to the same day of the previous year, but I'm taking his word that this is a fair representation of an average mid-February day for the Texas power grid. There were issues with some natural gas generators having supply issues due to the cold weather, but natural gas provided 91% more electricity (measured in MWh) compared to an average winters day, and was down only 7% from what it provides during the peak summer demand. Wind was down 72% compared to an average winters day. Renewables do have some downsides despite all their benefits, and maybe there should be an honest discussion about how public policy should address this. Subsidies for intermittent energy supplies should probably be partly contingent on also providing grid storage.

soco 6y ago
There are wind farms currently running in Alaska[1] which is arguably colder than Texas. The cold-related downsides seem to be well known and already addressed, so it's definitely not a technical issue here. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Alaska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Alaska
- akvadrako 6y ago
  It's a technical issue because the investment and power required to for the deicing necessary greatly reduces their efficiency. It's an interesting question if Texas should require all turbines to have deicing capabilities which are almost never used.
  - enraged_camel 6y ago
    >> It's a technical issue because the investment and power required to for the deicing necessary greatly reduces their efficiency. Interesting. Can you provide sources for reading?
6y ago

jillesvangurp 6y ago

According to this article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-56085733 about 30GW of coal and gas was taken offline and about 16GW of renewables. Peak demand was 69GW. So, gas and coal affected represented about 43+% of the total demand for energy. Coal piles froze and reduced capacity (shoveling wet coal frozen solid is hard). Gas pipes froze because of humidity in the pipes (removing water from gas takes energy). Both are preventable problems of course and commonly dealt with elsewhere. Wind turbines were also affected. That too would have been preventable: weather proofed turbines exist and operate in both polar regions, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, etc. and other places where what happened in Texas can happen any day of the year and does not count as remarkable weather and arguably should have been planned for in Texas where it is rare but not that rare for it to be cold once in a while. The reason for this push for reducing subsidies is simple: wind and solar reduce the demand for more expensive gas and when that peaks, gas plants are not profitable and may even have to shut down temporarily. Coal is already past the point of being even close to credible as a cost effective alternative. It only survives with subsidies, tax benefits, and other forms of government support. Hence recent closures of coal plants across the US even in states where they actually mine coal. It's just too expensive even in places where they have every incentive to pretend otherwise. Wind grows by the MWs of capacity per month in Texas currently. There is a massive investment in it everywhere and that has been going on for years in Texas. Likewise grid solar is also rapidly growing there. It's basically becoming the dominant source of energy. People adding subsidized solar on their roof also put power back in the grid during the most lucrative moments in the day. This presents the dual problem of the grid having to pay for that (to buy it back from consumers) and reducing utilization of their expensive gas and coal plants at the same time. In peaker plant form, operating gas plants becomes even less attractive. Which is why expensive batteries are preferred instead. That's another thing that is growing rapidly in Texas. Batteries are expensive but still preferable to a gas plant that you don't operate most of the time that is really expensive to start and stop. Gas and oil producers dominate politics in Texas because they are such an important part of the local economy. They prefer to let consumers pay for expensive dirty power as much as they can so they can milk the sunk investments of gas and coal plants a bit longer and so they can sell their gas to the electricity providers. So that is two powerful lobbies with a vested interest in the status quo and a big reason for why things are the way they are. For the same reason weather proofing never happened because that would make gas plants even more costly and thus less attractive. Local politicians act in the interest of these powerful lobbies rather than consumers (who got some outrageous bills after the storm to pay for the mistakes by their own representatives). The interest of consumers would of course be lower prices and a cleaner grid (less pollution, reduce CO2 impact). But that directly affects the profitability of gas plants and gas producers. Even without clean energy subsidies this trend will continue of course. Of course when talking subsidies, you have to consider that a lot of that already benefits fossil fuel production and consumption whether it comes in direct form, or in the form of tax benefits, environmental legislation, etc. Cutting that would accelerate the demise of coal and gas plants even further. So, instead, politicians do their best to slow the growth of renewables. In the same way interconnecting the grids to the rest in the US is controversial in Texas because that puts locally expensive producers on the spot.

onpointed 6y ago

While many generation sources were negatively impacted, including natural gas around Feb 15 - natural gas drastically increased generation between February 8 and 22, increasing the overall generation as well as making up for shortfalls in other generation sources. The federal EIA has ok charting and a really good API: https://www.eia.gov/opendata/embed.php?geoset_id=EBA.NG.WAT.HL&type=chart&relation_mode=line&map=none&regions=&series_id=EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.COL.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WAT.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NG.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NUC.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.OTH.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.SUN.HL%3BEBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WND.HL&date_mode=range&start=202101&end=20210401&periods= https://api.eia.gov/series/?api_key=<your API key>&series_id=EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.COL.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WAT.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NG.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.NUC.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.OTH.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.SUN.HL;EBA.TEX-ALL.NG.WND.HL&start=20210101&end=20210401 (Get an API key for the second URL from https://www.eia.gov/opendata/commands.php)

taylodl 6y ago

> so it is not clear this bill is being passed in good faith It's not. The problem was caused by the natural gas plants freezing. Full disclosure: I work in the utility industry and I'm very familiar with ERCOT. Here's the reality: any power bid into the market coming from an "unreliable" source such as wind and solar must be covered by power coming from a natural gas or coal powered plant. Those are ERCOT's rules. By "covered" I mean you must have allocated the reserve off of the capacity market. This bill is based on lies, misconceptions, and deceit.