4 ms·

Mid-west resident here. You think the power grid problems are only in California? Texas has their own. Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms. One

by jabart 4y ago

Mid-west resident here. You think the power grid problems are only in California? Texas has their own. Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms. One storm years ago I was without power for 7 days, some people in the rural area for up to a month. Solar would have been great since we didn't need a 8kw gasoline generator 24 hours a day for a 200-300w load.

Spivak 4y ago
> Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms Been though those, I don't really think "storm knocks out power lines" is the kind of problem people are talking about when it comes to grid reliability though. No amount of coal is going to keep the line from getting cut.
- epistasis 4y ago
  A largely renewables+storage grid will help these sorts of outages greatly, however. Most major grid outages can be traced back to things like squirrels bringing down transmission. Once we have a bunch of storage, and are used to doing grid ops on lots of intermittent generation sources, grid reliability will go up because a power line going down will have lots of potential mitigations that are not possible today.
cavisne 4y ago
There is a difference between a storm physically disrupting the grid in the mid west (breaking lines), and a predictable heatwave exceeding the capacity of the grid.
- jabart 4y ago
  For reference, we were told to conserve power to prevent a possible blackout too. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causing-energy-concerns-for-midwest-blackout-climate-change-indiana/531-a9ed881e-561a-4023-ad9f-068dc6f9fb08 https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causi... https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-rolling-blackouts-possible-during-heat-wave-this-week/article_d0685dc2-ea5a-11ec-b136-bf494758e46c.html https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-r...
kkfx 4y ago
In winter 200-300W load? How do you heat your house? I'm from EU, a relatively "cold" (French Alps at 1030m) place but definitively not that cold (peak cold -25℃/-13℉ in early morning, -8/10℃ (14/18℉) during the day between January and February), with a new home witch means well insulated, with a proper VMC, water-water heat-pump etc, and well... The MINIMUM load during night and early morning is around 1kW. IF Sun shine during the day, well, the load is not much an issue from 9h30 AM to 3 PM, but for the rest is on grid. Of course old homes heat with gas/oil/wood/* so need far less electricity (still IME a bit more than 2-300W base load though) BUT apart of wood coupled with large hot water storage (to been able to sleep instead of charging wood every hour) if you are not living in a relatively cold place I doubt you have a 6-12 month gas/oil/wood reserve at home and during such "cold episode", being very rare so far, getting new "fuel" would probably be not that easier... I've made a small p.v. with lithium storage as a very expensive UPS for the house, being relatively autonomous in summer I hardly can be autonomous in winter: in some RARE winters like the last one where Sun shine almost all day I can survive a day to the next cutting the heating depending on battery SOC, but in case of a day without enough Sun light I'm still on grid or on emergency generator backup... Having a real autonomy IME is more a dream than something feasible, at least something feasible at human prices because spending the price of a house just in batteries who might last at maximum 10 years for some rare episode is not really a sustainable price...
- jabart 4y ago
  Natural Gas is available during a power outage. Also our winters have nightly lows in the 30s but during the day high of 60s plus people and solar radiation and you don't have to heat the house much. This is also after a lot of insulation and spray foam in areas that in the 1970s they never insulated and leaked air.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    Oh, ok, so you are in a place where heating is not a issue in general, but you cite Texas disaster and that's relevant because normally I imaging heating is a non-issue in Texas but last year... About natural gas: if the outage is widespread I doubt you can get it: who pump it in the pipeline without energy?

by jabart 4y ago

Spivak 4y ago

> Mid-west can't handle some major wind or ice storms Been though those, I don't really think "storm knocks out power lines" is the kind of problem people are talking about when it comes to grid reliability though. No amount of coal is going to keep the line from getting cut.

epistasis 4y ago
A largely renewables+storage grid will help these sorts of outages greatly, however. Most major grid outages can be traced back to things like squirrels bringing down transmission. Once we have a bunch of storage, and are used to doing grid ops on lots of intermittent generation sources, grid reliability will go up because a power line going down will have lots of potential mitigations that are not possible today.

cavisne 4y ago

There is a difference between a storm physically disrupting the grid in the mid west (breaking lines), and a predictable heatwave exceeding the capacity of the grid.

jabart 4y ago
For reference, we were told to conserve power to prevent a possible blackout too. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causing-energy-concerns-for-midwest-blackout-climate-change-indiana/531-a9ed881e-561a-4023-ad9f-068dc6f9fb08 https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/dangerous-heat-causi... https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-rolling-blackouts-possible-during-heat-wave-this-week/article_d0685dc2-ea5a-11ec-b136-bf494758e46c.html https://www.wdrb.com/news/a-southern-indiana-utility-warns-r...

kkfx 4y ago

In winter 200-300W load? How do you heat your house? I'm from EU, a relatively "cold" (French Alps at 1030m) place but definitively not that cold (peak cold -25℃/-13℉ in early morning, -8/10℃ (14/18℉) during the day between January and February), with a new home witch means well insulated, with a proper VMC, water-water heat-pump etc, and well... The MINIMUM load during night and early morning is around 1kW. IF Sun shine during the day, well, the load is not much an issue from 9h30 AM to 3 PM, but for the rest is on grid. Of course old homes heat with gas/oil/wood/* so need far less electricity (still IME a bit more than 2-300W base load though) BUT apart of wood coupled with large hot water storage (to been able to sleep instead of charging wood every hour) if you are not living in a relatively cold place I doubt you have a 6-12 month gas/oil/wood reserve at home and during such "cold episode", being very rare so far, getting new "fuel" would probably be not that easier... I've made a small p.v. with lithium storage as a very expensive UPS for the house, being relatively autonomous in summer I hardly can be autonomous in winter: in some RARE winters like the last one where Sun shine almost all day I can survive a day to the next cutting the heating depending on battery SOC, but in case of a day without enough Sun light I'm still on grid or on emergency generator backup... Having a real autonomy IME is more a dream than something feasible, at least something feasible at human prices because spending the price of a house just in batteries who might last at maximum 10 years for some rare episode is not really a sustainable price...

jabart 4y ago
Natural Gas is available during a power outage. Also our winters have nightly lows in the 30s but during the day high of 60s plus people and solar radiation and you don't have to heat the house much. This is also after a lot of insulation and spray foam in areas that in the 1970s they never insulated and leaked air.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Oh, ok, so you are in a place where heating is not a issue in general, but you cite Texas disaster and that's relevant because normally I imaging heating is a non-issue in Texas but last year... About natural gas: if the outage is widespread I doubt you can get it: who pump it in the pipeline without energy?