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"Wind turbines were a factor, but only a small one. Wind in Texas doesn’t produce as much power in the winter, and regulators don’t typically rely on wind turbi
by barbacoa 5y ago
"Wind turbines were a factor, but only a small one. Wind in Texas doesn’t produce as much power in the winter, and regulators don’t typically rely on wind turbines to provide significant amounts of power. Instead, regulators anticipated that natural gas and coal power plants would meet demand."
This is a key paragraph that the author waves over without elaboration. Wind power makes up 25% of the power grid. When winter storm hit wind production collapsed and the load all shifted to natural gas which couldn't sustain the load.
Here is a thought experiment, if that 25% of the grid had been coal power plants instead of wind would the grid have still failed?
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoWhy didn't Texas import power from other parts of the country? Or Mexico?
- barbacoa 5y agoBecause those grids were strained by the winter storm too.
- Tagbert 5y agoNo, Texas’ electric grid is not connected to any others to enable power sharing. They do this so they are not subject to federal oversight and regulations about the electric grid.
- barbacoa 5y agoERCOT has the ability to share power with Eastern grid and Mexican grid. This is done through high voltage DC interconnects so they do not need to sync the AC transmission. That is why they are still considered separate grids.