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Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies
- fweimer 3y agoThis misses an explanation why the suit was brought against the wholesale providers, and not the retail electric companies. I would expect that in general if there a dispute over services rendered, you need to work things out with your supplier, and not someone else further down the chain.
- ManBeardPc 3y agoI would guess that companies are often exempt in cases such as natural disasters or extreme weather events and there are entities responsible to prevent things like this from happening. Electric Reliability Council of Texas sounds like such an entity.
- TradingPlaces 3y agoThe split between retail and wholesale puts the retail arms at the mercy of wholesale. This went all the way up the line to gas providers, who just decided to declare force majeure and closed up shop. Vistra tried desperately to keep the power on, and wound up losing over $1 billion for their troubles. Texas has a great system under normal conditions that has incentivized a ton of solar and Panhandle wind, but it is not built for severe conditions.
- Spooky23 3y agoIt has a great system for the various entities that own the state legislature. Public utilities are essential services. “Great when times are good” literally is the worst type of arrangement. Having a public entity that exits to drive private profit is disgusting and a great example of the insanity of modern political thought.
- TradingPlaces 3y agoAgreed, but you should also acknowledge that the system has produced the largest buildout of renewables. In the past 30 days, 33% of generation in ERCOT was wind or solar (mostly wind). For comparison, CAISO in California was 23% (mostly solar).
- infecto 3y agoThanks for raising these points. I think Texas has many challenges but the energy market is actually quite elegant and brilliant. It could definitely use improvements around emergency conditions but we have had incredible rollout of new clean generation both on the renewable front and natural gas.
- Spooky23 3y agoI did. It’s great for the landowners and producers, who in turn are kind to the legislators.
- acdha 3y ago> Texas has a great system under normal conditions that has incentivized a ton of solar and Panhandle wind, but it is not built for severe conditions. I don’t know that it’s “great” for anyone except the guys in the energy market who see the upside from volatility. The rates I see right now are higher than what my local utility charges, about on par with our all-renewable option, and we have no downside scenario where the prices skyrocket or the power goes out with no accountability. I do appreciate the amount of wind power (and hope the politicians don’t stymie that industry) but it doesn’t appear to be especially unique in that growth.
- TradingPlaces 3y agoIn the past 30 days, 33% of generation in ERCOT was wind or solar (mostly wind). For comparison, CAISO in California was 23% (mostly solar).
- acdha 3y agoYou’d want to look over a longer period of time since those figures have big seasonal variations, and we can’t forget that California has a considerably larger economy and population – there are around a hundred countries with populations smaller than the difference between California and Texas - so it would probably be better to make that comparison per-capita or per-gigawatt. Since we’re talking about renewables, greenhouse emissions would also be a good point and it looks like California’s grid is substantially cleaner than Texas’ by that metric according to the EPA, but that’s complicated by California having the option to buy power from outside the state. In any case, my point was simply that if we’re seeing a system with recurring widespread life-threatening outages described as great, I think it’d need to be almost free or 100% non-polluting to balance that out. The 2021 outage alone was responsible for hundreds of deaths and damages in the hundreds of billions range, so I kinda expect better than “a top competitor to CAISO”.
- TradingPlaces 3y agoOK, last 365 days, 31% for Texas, 29% for Cali. You can play here https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...
- cyanydeez 3y ago>Texas has a great system under normal conditions that has incentivized a ton of solar and Panhandle wind, but it is not built for severe conditions. No. It's not winter proof, it's not interconnected with it's neighbors. It absolutely is not a "great system". It's a controlled system for its own greed.
- salawat 3y agoThe not interconnected with neighbors was an intentional decision driven by previous degradations of QoS way back in the 50's/60's era when they were intercinnected with the coastal grids. It's downright shocking the difference in frequency between power losses I experienced on the regular in Texas vs. what my out of state family experience. I started keeping track of it a couple years ago. My family can have dozens of sporadic outages in a span of time with 100% uptime for me in TX. Smaller, less interconnected networks can be a godsend. Hell, it's a lesson that's immortalized in our interstate highway system. ...Then again, I suppose that there's the case to be made that more frequent outages keep your response teams sharp. There is a drop off among Operations people whereby knowledge tends to end up getting forgotten when too much time passes between completion of repeated periodic tasks.
- dfinninger 3y agoWhich is interesting because, anecdotally, I’ve had the exact opposite experience. I’ve lived in Dallas and Austin for a collective 27 years. And the number of outages I’ve had bewilders friends and family that are out of state. Since I’ve moved out of Texas a few years ago I haven’t had a single power outage. In my family while growing up we kept flashlights and candles handy, and us kids were (very lightly) drilled on where to find them when the power went out. And again, this was in the middle of the metro, not out in any rural parts.
- salawat 3y agoI was in an area serviced by the Bluebonnet power cooperative, which executed one of the smoothest time based multiplexes I've ever seen. Interestingly, I've found most problems seem to be metro-centric in Texas. Austin, for instance, in patticular has a horribly architected power network, where much of downtown's skyscrapers and what not share a circuit that is never load shed, leaving only the residentials to be. This escalated to tragic consequences during the Winter storms of a few years ago when everyone was told to stay home (and freeze due to lack of power), while all of the buildings downtown where they'd have ostensibly worked kept their lights and heat on. Families would have unironically been better off braving the streets to park themselves in a heated office downtown rather than trying to make due in their own homes. The landlords, lawyers, insurers, and sadly the fire departments, however, would have had a meltdown trying to figure out who should be culpable for anything that ended up happening as a result of the terrible decisionmaking when building the trunk. Cutting everyone loose on their own recognizance was a brilliant stroke of legal culpability shedding there. Gg Austin Power on that one. Friends over in Dallas were also reporting a similar situation there during the hullaballo. If it's taught me anything, it's that urban planning of power networks seriously needs some rearchitecting in those locales.
- infecto 3y agoI don’t think that makes sense. The retail companies are at the mercy of the grid. The miss here is what about PUCT who governs ERCOT. ERCOT did everything in their set of rules. We probably need to change the rules for emergencies, that’s up to the legislature and the appointees of PUCT.
- fweimer 3y agoThe demands of the retailers are supposed to shape what the grid offers (both in the market sense and the infrastructure sense). I suspect the answer is far more mundane: the consumers purchased something like 98% availability, and this is what they got.
- drivingmenuts 3y agoWelcome to Texas, where the state doeen't want to be responsible for anything, which makes me question why they exist in the first place.
- sklargh 3y agoI suspect that is by-in-large the point of the US de-regulatory project. If one deconstructs the state to the point of ineffectiveness then its existence is largely pointless and reasonably easy to discard for a newer state. Of course this presents an opportunity to form a new state in a more desirable configuration for involved parties.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago>Of course this presents an opportunity to form a new state in a more desirable configuration for involved parties. Or more likely you will end up governed by monopoly corporations.
- sklargh 3y agoThis is an involved party in my analysis.
- naremu 3y agoThe impression I get from friends living in TX who have been sympathetic to TX for their entire lives, is that it's been a slow process working towards effectively only having behavioral laws for poor people. And yes, a common trope of their complaints is a kafkaesque system where it seemingly exists exclusively to be underfunded, under performing and practically intended to breed more resentment from the general population so that they're more amenable to just completely dismantling the civilian system altogether since they now see no incentive or convincing argument for it. It's genuinely scary. Especially since you get to pretend like you're trying and the system just doesn't work, so we need to get rid of it to "save money".
- frob 3y ago
- louwrentius 3y agoIt may be juvenile but as a Dutch person “kut.org” and “kut news” is so surreal to read. Maybe on point: as someone living in a country with relative big government and reaping the huge quality of life reward from it, I just can’t understand why people would want to create a society where you risk losing basic facilities such as electricity. What happened in Texas is such a string of failures to actually govern and force companies to adhere to regulations, it’s crazy to me.
- jefftk 3y agoIt's a radio call sign: K because it's West of the Mississippi River, UT for the University of Texas, and three letters because the license dates to 1925 before the FCC completely moved to four letters.
- louwrentius 3y agoI understand, but it spells a rude word for “vagina” in Dutch.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoEnglish has the same word but they put one more letter in it.
- mannykannot 3y agoThere is a University of Northern Texas - a public research university in Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. It has a radio station, callsign KNTU.
- pests 3y agoLovely. Imagine someone trying to explain why a radio station is named C*T lmao, it would get changed so fast.
- stevehawk 3y agoi'm sure you understand why that is not particularly important to a small American radio station
- rightbyte 3y agoThis is a social problem not a technical one. If elderly dies from cold weather in a blackout, the community and neighbours do not care for them. I guess most do however, but knowing many elderly, that stubbornly refuse to ask for help, it is probably hard to know if some neighbours are freezing to death. The power company is way too far up the chain to check in on weak elderly.
- pests 3y agoWhy tho? I also find it odd we don't utilize the postal service more. They already visit every house 6 times a week.
- mcny 3y agoIn most new construction, the postal worker no longer comes to the home or apartment. They use something called a clusterbox. This is only applicable to the US but my understanding is that the postal service has strict limits when it comes to hiring full time workers. Something about having to account for full benefits or some act of Congress that I don't understand. But the net effect is your postman/post woman likely doesn't know you besides your name. https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-a-Cluster-Box https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-a-Cluster-Box
- mcny 3y agoThis is really what I thought "defund the police" was all about. You don't send people with guns drawn to someone if you suspect they might kill themselves by hanging themselves in their own home. We can't rely on informal / social structures though. Maybe the old person is like that old man from the Disney Pixar movie up who refused to sell his house. If your neighbors resent you, it doesn't mean you must die.
- bitcharmer 3y agoThis is one of the things I find quite surreal about the US. How is it not government's responsibility to ensure citizens have access to basic utilities?
- halfmatthalfcat 3y agoThe voters voted in politicians who make sure this isnt the government's responsibility. This is democracy in action.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoIt has been this way from the start of the nation.
- acdha 3y agoKind of: none of this was agreed to by a majority of the people – the entire United States law was originally drafted by white male landowners, and Texas has relied heavily on creative policies around voting since the civil rights era banned outright prevention - and over time these principles reinterpretation over time by judges who usually are not popularly elected. That puts us in an interesting situation where nobody voted directly for a position most voters wouldn’t agree to but there isn’t a single villain to vote out or a simple ballot initiative to put in the next election. If you asked whether there should be no obligation to provide power, for anyone to show up when you call 9/11, etc. most people would say that’s wrong but have a daunting path to change it.
- awakeasleep 3y agothis would be more true if we had a direct democracy, but the USA is a republic where the people have at best an indirect influence on policy.
- halfmatthalfcat 3y agoIt still true in youre electing people who have positions, options and predispositions that are, for all intents and purposes, known by the electors. Yes, you could argue that individuals running for election have hidden agendas, but you can apply simple principals to most individuals running for office and assume their intentions/actions/etc.
- fallingknife 3y agoSeems to me like "emergency" by definition is a state where it is unreasonable to expect that normal obligations can be met.
- yencabulator 3y agoNo, an emergency means a situation which poses an immediate risk and which requires urgent attention. Risk mitigation is very much a thing.
- tuukkah 3y agoOne key point: "the state’s power grid operator, enjoys sovereign immunity"
- zrail 3y agoI think this is _the_ key point. ERCOT not being accountable to anyone except the legislature means that things like this will keep happening.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y agoLegal immunity is pretty sweet. I'm surprised Amazon hasn't demanded this of states along with the other tax breaks and free stuff they expect to get when opening a new headquarters or major dist center. Is there like just a form you fill out to get this?
- breckenedge 3y agoPower generation and transmission used to be a collection of state-controlled monopolies in Texas. That ended in the 90s, but obviously there was no way to break up the distribution network. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-year-the-texas-legislature-changed-the-energy-game-forever/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-year-the-texa...
- breckenedge 3y agoMany heads at ERCOT were fired or resigned after the last outage. And NERC is basically the same structure as ERCOT.
- infecto 3y agoAs a Texas resident I think this is a good thing. The real untouched key point is legislature creates the rules and they never designed it with emergency in mind. I doubt it was nefarious at the time in the late 90s.
- galoisscobi 3y ago
- aurizon 3y agoThus they are free to sell spot power at 10-100x the rate - as they did...
- cowsandmilk 3y agoThat’s a different matter. Those sued in this case no longer had the ability to generate power at all and therefore weren’t selling at any price.
- maxlin 3y agoThe positive part of this is that at least in some degree this will lead to more people going off-grid and the companies losing customers, a win both for general survivability and the need to legitimize unreliable centralized poo you have dependence on.
- paulmd 3y agoIt’s quite often illegal to go off-grid and the power companies will also create financial disincentives (formalized via regulatory powers) for backfeeding the grid when they don’t want it to happen. They have made sure it’s a heads they win, tails you lose situation.
- infecto 3y agoI agree that sometimes counties have too many permits and requirements for rural areas but largely in any populated town, it makes sense to prevent off grid buildings. Similar to if you had a home without sewer hookups or permitted septic. On the back feeding side, I am not sure. While in many areas it’s not as financially lucrative to add back to the grid, it also is a much more realistic number. For too long areas like CA had models that meant homes were not contributing to the transmission they could access and were being paid closer to retail rates instead of generation rates. So I don’t think it’s quite as one sided as you paint it.
- infecto 3y agoAs a Texas power consumer I still appreciate the structure of the energy market here compared to other states I have participated in. There is still plenty room for improvement. I think other states could benefit from the general structure. The good parts are mainly surrounded by the separation of concerns. There are two main grid operators, their only concern is maintaining and expanding the transmission. They get a flat fee for this work. Generators are purely in the business of generation. Of course they are there to make a profit but the beauty of this part is we can move a lot quicker than other states to build out new generation, lots of clean. While other states are still struggling, Texas is leading the front in new plants. Sometimes at night the wind capacity is so large it dips close to negative prices. ERCOT in my opinion gets a lot of attention and too much of the blame. ERCOT from all the prior readings I have done, did their best given their operating rules. PUCT Who governs them and is comprised of appointed staff from the governor iirc has gotten little to no attention. This article was a lot of fluff and could have really been summed up with the ending. Providing emergency power was never in the original rule set. It’s easy for us to just say oh Texas sucks, it’s filled with a bunch of conservatives, this is what they want. I think that’s a weak argument though that is a little childish. Don’t get me wrong, I am not happy with many parts of the government, but in this scenario I don’t believe this was an evil conspiracy by design. Unsure if there is enough want in the people to change it. Ideally this would require some type of emergency clause on generation but I am not sure what that would look like. Someone has to be on the hook for paying the generation. With all that said, I am still overall happy with the structure. We generate a lot of clean power and we have the incentives to build more and more of it out. We should not force generators to produce outside of the energy market so we need to figure out how and who pays for this emergency power.
- cyanydeez 3y agoThe only time I ever consider the powergrid in this State is summer, or a lighting strike. We don't have wide swaths going without power due to entirely predictable circumstances. There's absolutely reasons ERCOT and Texas are blamed steadily, and it's because they refuse to interconnect with other systems and refuse to winterize. I don't see news of people dying around here because of predictable winter storms.
- helf 3y ago[dead]