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Texas Power Prices to Surge 800% on Sunday Amid Searing Heat
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoSo, where is the free market supply/demand miracle to build more power supply here? It is a Republican state, right, can't blame anti-market Democrats for this. Is it time lag? By the time someone thinks to build more power, it is winter again and everyone is like 'man, kind of chilly, nah-we're good'.
- j45 3y agoSupply/demand in dysregulated electricity just means to pocket the additional profit until user behaviour changes and let prices lag coming down. There’s little like politicians who haven’t done anything in business making decisions in economy like they have. We get the leaders we deserve.. is the saying?
- coffeebeqn 3y agoWell except that also don’t have enough electricity in the winter
- vorpalhex 3y agoThat's incorrect. We have significant surplus of electricity in Winter so long as gas generators (the companies that extract natural gas from the ground) can effectively work. The problem being that if gas extraction gear gets too cold (meaningfully below freezing) then it stops working, or at least works poorly.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoSo.. it is correct?
- Rapzid 3y agoIt's not correct. Texas has enough power in "the winter"; the average winter. A few outlier events don't change that unless your being hyperbolic.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoHow many "few" cases are needed to no longer be "hyperbolic".
- vorpalhex 3y agoMore than two in 50 years?
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago180 in 20 years. https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-experienced-more-power-outages-than-any-other-state-over-the-past-20-years-report-says-29896472 https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-experienced-more-power-... I think you are thinking in terms of there were 'only two state wide catastrophic failures that took down entire grid and became national news so I remember them'. But really, isn't that a pretty low bar? 'we've only had 2 complete state wide grid collapses, what's the problem'.
- vorpalhex 3y agoBut those 179 outages weren't "the grid" or "not enough power". We are the single largest state in the continental US. You can fit Britain into Texas 3x over. That's a LOT of power lines! Most of which are not in cities. Of course we are going to have power outages that are localized!
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoI'm not saying the entire grid went down 180 times. You said "2". There should be more than 2 before we worry. Sorry, if you were very narrowly defining this to only 2 "Major Winter Outages". I was saying, how many problems do we need before we can say something without being considered 'hyperbolic'. There are a lot more outages. People just remember the big ones, and forget the rest. It's trying to argue when people only have short term memory. Yeah, there were 2 big ones that people remember, that isn't all of them. Things aren't normal if there is an increasing rate.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoLOL. That is funny. >"We have significant surplus of electricity in Winter" Unless it's >"too cold"
- LinuxBender 3y agoNot disagreeing but FWIW Texas has been turning purple [1] for some time now. I suspect 2021 numbers will make it even more purple as COVID drove a lot of people to Austin. I have to wonder if another factor is that Texas has it's own independent power grid and they for the most part do not tie into the rest of the US grids to let other states absorb some of their pain. [2] [1] - https://purplestatesofamerica.org/ https://purplestatesofamerica.org/ [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection
- itsoktocry 3y agoSo people fled their blue states because of COVID policy, but they maintain allegiance to the policy makers? That's odd.
- coolbreezetft22 3y agoimo it was housing prices that drove people to places like Texas where a large house is much more affordable. COVID just made that move much easier to do with remote working
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoNo, Austin built a tech industry and couldn’t fill all those jobs with conservative Texans, so they had to use money to attract liberal techies from other states. Not that Austin was very conservative before COVID, well, you probably knew that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- msandford 3y agoWholesale electricity in Texas is often $50/MWh or less. Consumers are paying $0.12/kWh delivered at retail. It could well be that even with these price spikes the energy retailers still have enough arb during the normal times to cover these wild times. If so it seems like markets are working insofar as consumers are paying lower average prices. It might be that occasional price spikes are more economic than building new generation capacity.
- raverbashing 3y agoSounds like anyone with a modicum of foresight should have been investing in power storage for when the grid breaks Also 0.12 is cheap but not the cheapest, see for example how much people pay in Quebec
- 7e 3y agoQuebec has hydropower. Texas is flat.
- thefurdrake 3y agoTexas is windy.
- lesuorac 3y agoFlat is pretty easy to change. There's a simple trick they used with making canals for barges back in the day. You dig a 3foot hole and line the sides with a 3foot wall and you get a 6foot deep canal. I suspect the bigger issue with the parent's comment is that just because you know Texas has surge pricing doesn't mean that the surge will be high/long enough to cover the opportunity cost of energy storage. I bet spending say 1 billion on a new oil rig will pay back more money than 1 billion on a pumped storage.
- pierat 3y agoAnd here in continental 'not Texas shithole', I'm paying the "exorbitant" rate of $.10916/kWh , less than the Texas rates. And mine are stable. None of this funny stock market bill crap. Yep, deregulation is better for SOMEONE. I wonder who that might be.
- upon_drumhead 3y agohttps://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/abbott-republicans-green-energy/ https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/abbott-republicans-g... https://www.rawstory.com/texas-power-outage-blackout-abbott/ https://www.rawstory.com/texas-power-outage-blackout-abbott/
- vorpalhex 3y agoIt's time lag. Texas is home to the most and the largest grid battery projects, at least in the US right now. We are also having an explosion of renewables including solar and wind. But all of that takes time. Some of it has come online and is helping, and proce jumps like this will continue to attract more of those projects.
- ethagknight 3y agoMost responsible Texas utility customers have long term contracts. There are people who choose not to have a structured power arrangement and choose to pay spot pricing (which can be very cheap!) and they are the ones exposed to this risk. So the market is working exactly as it's supposed to? It's also really friggin hot right now.
- cykotic 3y agoExcept it isn’t working as it is supposed to since infrastructure investment hasn’t occurred the way it should.
- pengaru 3y ago> It's also really friggin hot right now. Is there strong reason to not accept this as the new summer norm?
- SamPatt 3y agoIt's a strong El Nino this year. It will almost certainly be cooler next year.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoWhy have a system where it is possible to be 'irresponsible'? Why not just make it sane for everyone to begin with? Could it be that someone is being taken advantage of? Say, perhaps, people that were mislead?
- derekp7 3y agoI think the free market idea can work somewhat at the individual level, assuming proper tools are in place. What would have to happen is variable rate based on the amount you consume -- you get the first X KWh for the base price, going over that is where you pay the premium. So you can choose to run your AC at 72F, or 85F and not go over your allotment (or run at night to super cool your house, back off in the day, and have good insulation). Now I don't know if a tiered system is common / available at the household level, I know it exists for businesses in various markets. A second individual option would be to use a gas generator if the electric rates are too high, and install solar for longer term savings. Individual gas generators would be a horrible option for climate change, but may be a short term solution while waiting to install solar.
- PointyFluff 3y ago[dead]
- throwawaysleep 3y agoYou assume that this ain’t the will of the free market. People won’t pay for reliability. You see this everywhere frankly. Reliability is only valuable to business customers. Customers will not pay for reliable appliances, reliable airlines, etc.
- mschuster91 3y ago> Reliability is only valuable to business customers. Customers will not pay for reliable appliances, reliable airlines, etc. Because no one has the money for that any more. Almost all of our problems, in the end, boil down to decades of wage stagnation correlated with cost-of-living explosion. Like 58% of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck [1]... they are living the Boots Theory [2] and left to deal with the fallout when disaster (inevitably) strikes. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/11/58percent-of-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-cnbc-survey-reveals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/11/58percent-of-americans-are-l... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
- Rapzid 3y agoIt might actually be "working" though. Texas generally has quite cheap electricity, and is has a TON of renewable generation and investment. A spike here in there in pricing isn't evidence to me that it's not generally producing the desired outcomes.
- sircastor 3y agoNobody cares about how cheap the power is when they’re risking their health and possibly their lives.
- Rapzid 3y agoOutside of two events in recent memory Texas also doesn't have rolling blackouts or brownouts; they are simply unheard of.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoNot sure your point was clear enough. Let me paraphrase it, to help out. "Except for a couple of failures, we don't have failures".
- Rapzid 3y agoIt's perfectly clear.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago>"Texas experienced more power outages than any other state over the past 20 years, report says" https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-experienced-more-power-outages-than-any-other-state-over-the-past-20-years-report-says-29896472 https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-experienced-more-power-...
- MerelyMortal 3y ago
- rossdavidh 3y agoThe price spikes are intended (and actually succeed in) incentivizing the building of power sources like solar that do not produce 24x7, but do produce during normal peak times (when it's sunny and hot). They make enough $$ during peak prices, that they are competitive (in fact as a % of total grid capacity are rising fast, already in double-digits). You could achieve something similar by using a flat rate, but subsidizing the solar some other way, perhaps with direct handout, and raising taxes to pay for that. In some ways, that would be more direct and easy to understand. However, this does at least have the advantage of most incentivizing the capacity which is available when it is most needed.
- haltingproblem 3y agohttps://archive.is/W6xmq https://archive.is/W6xmq
- j45 3y agoWith electricity: Free markets, deregulation. Free for all. Disregulated. Just the way critical utilities should be provided and consumed, without reliability.
- Rapzid 3y agohttps://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_cond...
- pierat 3y agoIt's kind of fitting that a state flush in oil wealth (the stuff that burning destroys the climate, causing extreme heat and such), is suffering worse under climate devastation, and also doesn't have enough energy to keep people safe. The power brokers also kept their energy grid off the federal network so they could also pollute and do horrible stuff at their impunity cause 'feds are bad'. I guess this is an economic variant of darwinism.
- rayiner 3y agoI don’t even know where to start. How about the low hanging fruit. What “federal network” are you talking about? Do you think there is a federal power grid? Also: Texas leads the country in renewables generation: https://www.kxan.com/weather-traffic-qas/texas-leads-the-country-in-combined-wind-solar-renewable-energy/ https://www.kxan.com/weather-traffic-qas/texas-leads-the-cou... (“ Texas more than doubled what California produced in renewable energy last calendar year. The gap will only widen in the next few years as our state looks for continued increases in solar power harnessing.”)
- cool_dude85 3y agoIt seems fair to describe all the other regional ISOs as being connected in a sense (transitively) whereas ERCOT is not. What is your objection?
- caminante 3y agoWhat's that standard for "connected"? ERCOT is connected to Mexico's power grid [0] and other non-ERCOT regions [1]. There is no unified "federal network." [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/02/03/rolling-blackouts-force-texas-to-import-power-from-mexico/?sh=3a1bdc4a7110 https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2011/02/03/ro... [1] https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/dctieflows#:~:text=DC%20Tie%20Flows%20is%20a,Tie%20activity%20at%20four%20interconnections https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/dctieflows#:~:t....
- enigmurl 3y ago
- pfdietz 3y agoThese peaks cry out for demand management. This means exposing customers to actual prices. But how is a homeowner to respond to these? This seems like a great use case for home automation, where systems can be automatically turned up/down, on/off, in response to changes in prices, or even in response to forecasts of changes (so, for example, a home might be precooled to below normal before a large peak, then allowed to gradually warm during the peak with the A/C turned off.) More complex structured contracts with electricity providers might also be a solution, where consumers pay for only a certain level of reliability in the supply, with the provider being able to throttle power in tight situations. (Precooling could be extended to making ice. A tonne of ice is ~1 m^3, which isn't that much volume. Storing energy this way could be much cheaper than doing so with batteries.)
- 7e 3y agoThe biggest draw is A/C. It dwarfs other usage. And unfortunately, A/C is sometimes required to avoid death. Precooling isn’t effective in that the A/C will still run for nearly as long during peak.
- pfdietz 3y agoPrecooling allows cheap pre-peak power to be used instead of very expensive peak power.
- fragmede 3y agoThat's the critical thing. A/C isn't just a luxury anymore. As the Earth heats up, A/C becomes am absolutely necessity to avoid dying from temperatures exceeding the wet bulb temperature, where human sweat is no longer sufficient to cool people off, especially the very young or very old. The heatwaves across Europe a bunch of years back killed some 70,000 people from the heat.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gnicholas 3y ago
- kardianos 3y agoReal time price: https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/contours/rtmLmp.html https://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/contours/rtmLmp.html Currently not high.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thebruce87m 3y agoThis is blocked for me, presumably because of my geographical location. Must get a lot of hackers from Scotland!
- pengaru 3y agoWell that's one way to discourage EV adoption
- nomel 3y agoTo be fair, in California I pay $0.67/kWh, every day, during peak. And, on hot days, we’re told to not charge our cars. I don’t think it’s conscious discouragement. If it is, then California is much better at it, and that’s a silly proposition.
- PointyFluff 3y ago[dead]
- bcrl 3y agoYikes. The peak rate here in Ontario is CAD$0.157/kWh, but our delivery charges are ~$0.05/kWh on top of that (Hydro One is the worst in that regard).
- gnicholas 3y agoWhich utility is this, and what type of plan are you on? The time-of-day based plans can have extremely high pricing during peak, to discourage non-essential usage during those hours. We are on PG&E and they moved us (involuntarily) from usage-based to time-of-day in 2021. But they promised to refund us after a year if it was more expensive on the new plan than it would have been on the old plan. It was, and we switched back. I don't think we pay even close to 67¢/kWh on the usage-based, unless we're like triple our base allotment (which we aren't, but might be if our PHEV were a full EV). Sometimes it's also possible to put the EV on a separate EV account, so that you can have your main house on usage-based and your EV on time-of-day. Given how much you're paying, I'd look into alternatives (or not charge during peak, which most people don't need to do).
- AYBABTME 3y agoMost EVs automatically charge at night when the electric demand is at its lowest.
- 3y ago
- baz00 3y agoI predicted many years ago that the fall of America will be due to citizens unable to afford to run air con.
- montecarl 3y agohttps://archive.is/W6xmq https://archive.is/W6xmq
- johnea 3y agoOne more step Please complete the security check to access archive.li What up? ^^
- jacknews 3y agofurther evidence that it's totally appropriate to let markets run society. :sarcasm: obviously