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Energy in Texas, like everywhere else in the US, is heavily regulated. They can't just raise rates or borrow money whenever they want. These decisions are reg

Energy in Texas, like everywhere else in the US, is heavily regulated. They can't just raise rates or borrow money whenever they want. These decisions are regulated and political. So there is a set amount of income coming in to improve things and repair things and to pay off debt. They were required to build out wind power. Probably a good thing in the big scheme of things, but that takes money away from other priorities. They have to fund the capital improvements of putting the windmills out there and expanding the transmission capacity to get the electricity to where it will be used (a long ways away). And they have to make other improvements and alterations to account for the intermittent nature of wind. While they're paying for that, it puts pressure on maintaining and improving the other parts of their infrastructure. What we're seeing in Texas and other places is that the stable system that existed for decades is being disrupted by many things, and it will be a while before we reach a new point of stability. It's an enormous engineering, economic, and political challenge.

jackson1442 5y ago
You suggest that these problems would be faced everywhere. So why is Texas the only one experiencing them?
- bcrl 5y ago
  Eastern Ontario seems to do fine handling winter temperatures of -28C to -35C every year. Cold isn't the issue driving reliability problems here, wind and ice are.
  - freeone3000 5y ago
    Eastern Ontario also gets wind and ice. Every single year. And yet it has electricity.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Exactly. Eastern Ontario gets wind and ice and cold EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Every one. If you don't winterize, you don't work. It is a cost. In Texas, basically up until last year with that blackout, there was no downside to not winterizing. Why? Most of our pipes aren't even deep enough to handle a hard freeze - because we don't usually get hard freezes.
      - freeone3000 5y ago
        There's been a deep freeze every year for two years now. It might be worth considering there's going to be another one next year.
        vorpalhex 5y ago
        We did, which is why we had no blackouts this year.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Didn't we see the same issue in Oregon or Washington (I can't remember which) at the same time?
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I do not recall any issues in WA. OR had a bunch of people out of power due to downed power lines due to ice forming on trees and then trees or tree branches falling down and taking the power line down. There was never any problem with supply of power though, since there is plenty here due to hydro.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    I live in central oregon, so I can only speak for where I live. But the power outages we did have, or that I know about, were mostly from wildfire season. However, I just know about my general area and that is not necessarily that same for all of Oregon.
- refurb 5y ago
  It’s not? We’ve had rolling black outs in the Bay Area few the past few years - not to mentioned a few massive fires started by crappy infrastructure.
  - thephyber 5y ago
    Those are interesting mental gymnastics you just did. Rolling “black outs” in California in recent years were due to two reasons. When we approached maximum capacity, the California ISO requested large electrical users voluntarily reduce usage. In times and places where that wasn’t enough, some areas saw black outs. This is because demand on the hottest parts of the hottest days of the year breached supply/capacity by the western electrical grid. Further, PG&E (one energy provider in. Ali for us) did create blackouts during weather that was most likely to cause fires with their equipment. These had nothing to do with electrical load/capacity, but with environmental factors. PG&E has struggled to prune foliage from their equipment, which is one of the causes of recent fires. They claim environmental regulations are onerous, but this is the same company that went into bankruptcy after poisoning multiple towns (causing cancer cluster) and allowing a neighborhood in San Bruno to explode due to lack of proper maintenance on their natural gas lines. They were also found guilty of deaths (murder?) in some more recent fires.
    - refurb 5y ago
      Precisely. Not sure people who live in glass houses should be throwing stones.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
magicalist 5y ago
This seems pretty irrelevant (and not specific to this event)? Wind power produced above projected rates. The biggest problem was lack of winterization of natural gas infrastructure.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Ask Canada, they seem to go better.
vel0city 5y ago
> They can't just raise rates or borrow money whenever they want. Uhh, yes they can, and yes they do. Wholesale rates of electricity change every 15min in ERCOT. During the deep freeze weather event you could sign up for electricity plans which exposed you to the wholesale rate of electricity. The retail rates you pay in the open market are determined by the contract you signed. Lots of REPs offer all kinds of pricing structures on their contracts, the contracts offered change every several days and can all kind of term lengths or even allowed variability. The amount generators are getting changes constantly in this market. As mentioned earlier, spot prices change every 15 minutes. Bids take place in day-ahead markets as well, which change based on tons of different factors. The only people getting somewhat fixed rates are the distribution companies but even then their rates are allowed to change every now and then, and their prices are based on usage.
8note 5y ago
The wind mills did fine though. They didn't need to invest money in natural gas, and could have spent that on something weather proof

jackson1442 5y ago

You suggest that these problems would be faced everywhere. So why is Texas the only one experiencing them?

bcrl 5y ago
Eastern Ontario seems to do fine handling winter temperatures of -28C to -35C every year. Cold isn't the issue driving reliability problems here, wind and ice are.
- freeone3000 5y ago
  Eastern Ontario also gets wind and ice. Every single year. And yet it has electricity.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Exactly. Eastern Ontario gets wind and ice and cold EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Every one. If you don't winterize, you don't work. It is a cost. In Texas, basically up until last year with that blackout, there was no downside to not winterizing. Why? Most of our pipes aren't even deep enough to handle a hard freeze - because we don't usually get hard freezes.
    - freeone3000 5y ago
      There's been a deep freeze every year for two years now. It might be worth considering there's going to be another one next year.
      - vorpalhex 5y ago
        We did, which is why we had no blackouts this year.
_-david-_ 5y ago
Didn't we see the same issue in Oregon or Washington (I can't remember which) at the same time?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I do not recall any issues in WA. OR had a bunch of people out of power due to downed power lines due to ice forming on trees and then trees or tree branches falling down and taking the power line down. There was never any problem with supply of power though, since there is plenty here due to hydro.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  I live in central oregon, so I can only speak for where I live. But the power outages we did have, or that I know about, were mostly from wildfire season. However, I just know about my general area and that is not necessarily that same for all of Oregon.
refurb 5y ago
It’s not? We’ve had rolling black outs in the Bay Area few the past few years - not to mentioned a few massive fires started by crappy infrastructure.
- thephyber 5y ago
  Those are interesting mental gymnastics you just did. Rolling “black outs” in California in recent years were due to two reasons. When we approached maximum capacity, the California ISO requested large electrical users voluntarily reduce usage. In times and places where that wasn’t enough, some areas saw black outs. This is because demand on the hottest parts of the hottest days of the year breached supply/capacity by the western electrical grid. Further, PG&E (one energy provider in. Ali for us) did create blackouts during weather that was most likely to cause fires with their equipment. These had nothing to do with electrical load/capacity, but with environmental factors. PG&E has struggled to prune foliage from their equipment, which is one of the causes of recent fires. They claim environmental regulations are onerous, but this is the same company that went into bankruptcy after poisoning multiple towns (causing cancer cluster) and allowing a neighborhood in San Bruno to explode due to lack of proper maintenance on their natural gas lines. They were also found guilty of deaths (murder?) in some more recent fires.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Precisely. Not sure people who live in glass houses should be throwing stones.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

magicalist 5y ago

This seems pretty irrelevant (and not specific to this event)? Wind power produced above projected rates. The biggest problem was lack of winterization of natural gas infrastructure.

NicoJuicy 5y ago

Ask Canada, they seem to go better.

vel0city 5y ago

> They can't just raise rates or borrow money whenever they want. Uhh, yes they can, and yes they do. Wholesale rates of electricity change every 15min in ERCOT. During the deep freeze weather event you could sign up for electricity plans which exposed you to the wholesale rate of electricity. The retail rates you pay in the open market are determined by the contract you signed. Lots of REPs offer all kinds of pricing structures on their contracts, the contracts offered change every several days and can all kind of term lengths or even allowed variability. The amount generators are getting changes constantly in this market. As mentioned earlier, spot prices change every 15 minutes. Bids take place in day-ahead markets as well, which change based on tons of different factors. The only people getting somewhat fixed rates are the distribution companies but even then their rates are allowed to change every now and then, and their prices are based on usage.

8note 5y ago

The wind mills did fine though. They didn't need to invest money in natural gas, and could have spent that on something weather proof