4 ms·

So, I've lived in Texas since the late 90's. There are certainly things that need doing. But this is not really a great analysis. A better analysis of the Fe

So, I've lived in Texas since the late 90's. There are certainly things that need doing. But this is not really a great analysis. A better analysis of the February grid failure is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mwXICY4JM Long story short: 1) the population has gone up a lot, so all infrastructure (traffic, electricity, water, housing, etc.) has had to increase rapidly 2) the mix 10 years ago was a lot of coal and oil, now it is much more natgas, wind, and solar. These can be reliable, but they are very different than coal and oil, and therefore a lot of new lessons have to be learned. 3) a big reason for the surge in renewables is the way the market is designed, which lets them pocket big bonuses at peak demand times. Since this _normally_ is in the summer during the day, this makes solar a lot more competitive financially. Natgas certainly failed in February, but all three of wind, solar, and natgas had big problems, it was just that the natgas and wind were unexpected while the solar was not (in the winter at night). Thus far, the power grid is holding this summer, even though there is all-time record demand. We certainly do need to increase capacity, but that is mostly due to the surge in population, not any huge mismanagement. I'm sure it could be done better, but it's not unusual for record demand and a new mix of sources to put the system through a learning curve.

yao420 5y ago
I’m in central Texas and my power has gone out twice this summer. Not for a week like in February but I prefer the cold, you can put on a jacket. My house got into the 90’s and I could do nothing.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  Could you install solar on your roof and a battery? (Sorry if that's a hard thing financially, just a suggestion?)
  - sjg007 5y ago
    What is this, a third world country?
    - mastax 5y ago
      If you live somewhere that encourages you to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," grab hard and pull.
      - markoman 5y ago
        What type of actions on behalf of a John Q. Public would qualify as this 'pulling' that you're referring to? Just go solar, since wind really isn't feasible for a single family? That 'bootstraps' is an old term that doesn't really apply to today's highly-siloed civilization. Everyone has their specialty and making anything out of bailing wire & bubble-gum just isn't as likely as it was in 1920.
7thaccount 5y ago
Deregulation has been a major shift for most regions. Back in the day, the utilities would always plan the system for load growth and build new capacity and transmission when needed. This led to overbuilding as the utilities had a greater incentive to be reliable than to reduce costs. Later there was a big push to deregulate to let the free market make those decisions, but capacity is extremely expensive to build and prices have been very low in the past decade. Why that is the case is being hotly debated. The production tax credits for things like wind were very successful in getting many GW of wind capacity built, but they've distorted the market by letting those entities offer into the market much lower than anything else. From a green energy perspective, that is great, but there isn't enough storage yet (not anywhere even close), so conventional generators are still vital. As far as the February event in ERCOT goes, this would've happened regardless I think if the utilities have zero desire to winter storm proof their equipment. All of that is incredibly expensive, so there would not have been a rush to spend money on something viewed as a hundred year event. With that being said. Hundred year events seem to happen every month now, so I'm fully supportive of new legislation and reform to the resource adequacy in the united states. I think it's hard for most people to understand that a huge amount of the natural gas fleet just couldn't get gas and that gas prices were in the thousands of dollars.
mastax 5y ago
Yes, the ERCOT energy market doesn't pay enough for grid stability, i.e. idle dispatchable capacity. Also the Texas regulator did not require enough weatherization. This is changing somewhat [0]. Also to be fair the Texas weatherization requirements currently exceed the NERC ones, though those are due to be revised this year. In any case they were obviously not good enough. [0] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/26/texas-power-grid-reform-legislature/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/26/texas-power-grid-ref...
conductr 5y ago
> We certainly do need to increase capacity, but that is mostly due to the surge in population, not any huge mismanagement. I’ve lived in Texas all my 40+ years and I fully believe it to be mismanagement for a utility to not account for growth. This state is always growing. Growth is neither unexpected or out of the ordinary. They should have a plan for an assumed level of growth with a contingency plan for how to handle their assumption being wrong. They have nothing except outdated and neglected maintenance because of short term thinking, which is only a side effect of mismanagement.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Well, I agree with the problem, but not the cause. Infrastructure maintenance and failure to plan for it are endemic in America. The only time it seems that ongoing maintenance is planned and funded from the beginning of a project is toll roads, where private-public entities can extract profit from the road. My stronger point though, is funding. It isn't the fault of state utility operators that we don't have the capacity. It is the fault of local and state governments who have not reacted quickly enough to growth requirements.
  - conductr 5y ago
    Extremely valid point. I fear toll roads will be out of favor by the masses before their profit horizon kicks in. In a good portion of DFW, tolls are typically in the $300-$400 per month range out of a household budget. And, they keep adding more and more tolls. Some portions of town has an average household income that simply can not afford to get around town. Oh, and public transportation is a joke because... it's Texas. ERCOT should be more vocal about their budgetary needs and the consequences of delaying planned expenditures. The growth numbers support it. Legalize weed to pay for it.
S_A_P 5y ago
Houston area resident here. Largely agree with your analysis. Whether or not the great exodus from California is true or not, Im seeing lots of CA license plates around lately(along with more out of state plates in general). Maybe they drove here to visit friends and family, maybe they moved here. In 2018/2019 there were rolling blackouts during the peak of summer, which to my knowledge we have not had on my section of ERCOT this year. My beef with the grid is with the aging infrastructure. I live 40 miles from downtown Houston in what used to be a rural area, and now is becoming a suburban area. The local grid has not had any upgrades and has a lot more stress on it with the increase in demand. We lose power to a blown transformer or fuse on average of 4 times per month.
Vvector 5y ago
> the population has gone up a lot Texas is growing ~1.5% annually over the last 10 years (15.6% for 10 years). This is all expected, it's not a surprise. And Texas is expected to grow to 40-50m by 2050. The power companies have access to the same info. It's ridiculous to blame the low capacity on population growth. The real issue is that it is "unprofitable" to build spare capacity that will only be used 4-5 days a year. "population growth" is just an excuse.

yao420 5y ago

I’m in central Texas and my power has gone out twice this summer. Not for a week like in February but I prefer the cold, you can put on a jacket. My house got into the 90’s and I could do nothing.

bamboozled 5y ago
Could you install solar on your roof and a battery? (Sorry if that's a hard thing financially, just a suggestion?)
- sjg007 5y ago
  What is this, a third world country?
  - mastax 5y ago
    If you live somewhere that encourages you to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps," grab hard and pull.
    - markoman 5y ago
      What type of actions on behalf of a John Q. Public would qualify as this 'pulling' that you're referring to? Just go solar, since wind really isn't feasible for a single family? That 'bootstraps' is an old term that doesn't really apply to today's highly-siloed civilization. Everyone has their specialty and making anything out of bailing wire & bubble-gum just isn't as likely as it was in 1920.

7thaccount 5y ago

Deregulation has been a major shift for most regions. Back in the day, the utilities would always plan the system for load growth and build new capacity and transmission when needed. This led to overbuilding as the utilities had a greater incentive to be reliable than to reduce costs. Later there was a big push to deregulate to let the free market make those decisions, but capacity is extremely expensive to build and prices have been very low in the past decade. Why that is the case is being hotly debated. The production tax credits for things like wind were very successful in getting many GW of wind capacity built, but they've distorted the market by letting those entities offer into the market much lower than anything else. From a green energy perspective, that is great, but there isn't enough storage yet (not anywhere even close), so conventional generators are still vital. As far as the February event in ERCOT goes, this would've happened regardless I think if the utilities have zero desire to winter storm proof their equipment. All of that is incredibly expensive, so there would not have been a rush to spend money on something viewed as a hundred year event. With that being said. Hundred year events seem to happen every month now, so I'm fully supportive of new legislation and reform to the resource adequacy in the united states. I think it's hard for most people to understand that a huge amount of the natural gas fleet just couldn't get gas and that gas prices were in the thousands of dollars.

mastax 5y ago

Yes, the ERCOT energy market doesn't pay enough for grid stability, i.e. idle dispatchable capacity. Also the Texas regulator did not require enough weatherization. This is changing somewhat [0]. Also to be fair the Texas weatherization requirements currently exceed the NERC ones, though those are due to be revised this year. In any case they were obviously not good enough. [0] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/26/texas-power-grid-reform-legislature/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/26/texas-power-grid-ref...

conductr 5y ago

> We certainly do need to increase capacity, but that is mostly due to the surge in population, not any huge mismanagement. I’ve lived in Texas all my 40+ years and I fully believe it to be mismanagement for a utility to not account for growth. This state is always growing. Growth is neither unexpected or out of the ordinary. They should have a plan for an assumed level of growth with a contingency plan for how to handle their assumption being wrong. They have nothing except outdated and neglected maintenance because of short term thinking, which is only a side effect of mismanagement.

unethical_ban 5y ago
Well, I agree with the problem, but not the cause. Infrastructure maintenance and failure to plan for it are endemic in America. The only time it seems that ongoing maintenance is planned and funded from the beginning of a project is toll roads, where private-public entities can extract profit from the road. My stronger point though, is funding. It isn't the fault of state utility operators that we don't have the capacity. It is the fault of local and state governments who have not reacted quickly enough to growth requirements.
- conductr 5y ago
  Extremely valid point. I fear toll roads will be out of favor by the masses before their profit horizon kicks in. In a good portion of DFW, tolls are typically in the $300-$400 per month range out of a household budget. And, they keep adding more and more tolls. Some portions of town has an average household income that simply can not afford to get around town. Oh, and public transportation is a joke because... it's Texas. ERCOT should be more vocal about their budgetary needs and the consequences of delaying planned expenditures. The growth numbers support it. Legalize weed to pay for it.

S_A_P 5y ago

Houston area resident here. Largely agree with your analysis. Whether or not the great exodus from California is true or not, Im seeing lots of CA license plates around lately(along with more out of state plates in general). Maybe they drove here to visit friends and family, maybe they moved here. In 2018/2019 there were rolling blackouts during the peak of summer, which to my knowledge we have not had on my section of ERCOT this year. My beef with the grid is with the aging infrastructure. I live 40 miles from downtown Houston in what used to be a rural area, and now is becoming a suburban area. The local grid has not had any upgrades and has a lot more stress on it with the increase in demand. We lose power to a blown transformer or fuse on average of 4 times per month.

Vvector 5y ago

> the population has gone up a lot Texas is growing ~1.5% annually over the last 10 years (15.6% for 10 years). This is all expected, it's not a surprise. And Texas is expected to grow to 40-50m by 2050. The power companies have access to the same info. It's ridiculous to blame the low capacity on population growth. The real issue is that it is "unprofitable" to build spare capacity that will only be used 4-5 days a year. "population growth" is just an excuse.