5 ms·

In this context, I wouldn't be interested in averages. Their systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known. The average

In this context, I wouldn't be interested in averages. Their systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known. The average reliability rates aren't going to necessarily show these events.

abadpoli 2y ago
> systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known No they aren’t. They’re often repeated, but they aren’t true. Texas had a catastrophic “grid failure” in 2021. It hasn’t had any actual issues since. There have been no power outages due to “grid failure” since that one event. The past couple winters and summers have seen several situations where the grid operators have issued warnings, but these warnings are completely normal and are part of the process to inform power producers to not go offline, etc. In software terms, it’s basically the equivalent of “it’s going to be a busy day today, try to avoid doing any deployments to prod unless they’re really necessary”. Just like the train derailments last year, and the airplane issues this year, the media loves to use the fervor around a single bad event to then create big headlines about every similar event. Back to the software example, imagine if every big shopping holiday there was an CNN headline of “Amazon told its developers they cannot deploy to prod today. Amazon is worried about an outage!!” And because the layperson doesn’t know any better, they fall for it. But in reality, it was business as usual.
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  Over a million people lost power in Texas just about one week ago, an issue that continued to impact hundreds of thousands of people days after the event. Hundreds of thousands lost power for multiple days last winter as well following another cold snap. Those are two events I can recall by memory - one because it's so recent, the other because I was personally impacted by it. Do other states regularly have multi-day outages that impacts hundreds of thousands of people? I know California has at times with wildfires, but other than that? Are these issues below the line for being considered "systemic"? I'm actually asking, not refuting using question marks.
  - abadpoli 2y ago
    Both of those events were due to localized weather events that destroyed local power infrastructure (specifically, storms that destroyed overhead power lines). These are things that have not to do with federal regulations, which is the topic of this thread. And yes, other states have this problem as well. See https://poweroutage.us/about/majorevents https://poweroutage.us/about/majorevents.
  - infecto 2y ago
    This is a pretty weak argument. I am not sure how the grid was supposed to prepare for the most recent storm.
    - HelloMcFly 2y ago
      I'm not making an argument, I have no "position" that I'm advancing. I've seen the headlines, I was asking for clarification on what made those different. I do think "storm preparedness" is not a category that should be excluded from consideration given their occurrence is also systemic (and may increase due to climate change), but I'm also open to how these outages differ from more systemic outages. The difference that makes sense to me is that federal regulations - the topic at play here - wouldn't have impacted these situations at all. Makes sense.
      - infecto 2y ago
        I don't believe you can fully prepare a grid for winds bringing down trees and residential/transmission lines. That's the distinction. The winter outage could have been handled better both from preparation and from the crisis management.
        HelloMcFly 2y ago
        > I don't believe you can fully prepare a grid for winds bringing down trees and residential/transmission lines No, but perhaps you can have better plans for responding to such events, different staffing practices, temporary measures of some sort, etc.
nick238 2y ago
The average reliability rates cited (via US News rankings) explicitly exclude such major events. From the methodology page: Minutes of Power Outages: The number of minutes of power outages the average customer experiences in a year, excluding major events. (U.S. Energy Information Administration; 2022).

abadpoli 2y ago

> systemic issues dealing with extreme weather (winter and summer) are pretty well known No they aren’t. They’re often repeated, but they aren’t true. Texas had a catastrophic “grid failure” in 2021. It hasn’t had any actual issues since. There have been no power outages due to “grid failure” since that one event. The past couple winters and summers have seen several situations where the grid operators have issued warnings, but these warnings are completely normal and are part of the process to inform power producers to not go offline, etc. In software terms, it’s basically the equivalent of “it’s going to be a busy day today, try to avoid doing any deployments to prod unless they’re really necessary”. Just like the train derailments last year, and the airplane issues this year, the media loves to use the fervor around a single bad event to then create big headlines about every similar event. Back to the software example, imagine if every big shopping holiday there was an CNN headline of “Amazon told its developers they cannot deploy to prod today. Amazon is worried about an outage!!” And because the layperson doesn’t know any better, they fall for it. But in reality, it was business as usual.

HelloMcFly 2y ago
Over a million people lost power in Texas just about one week ago, an issue that continued to impact hundreds of thousands of people days after the event. Hundreds of thousands lost power for multiple days last winter as well following another cold snap. Those are two events I can recall by memory - one because it's so recent, the other because I was personally impacted by it. Do other states regularly have multi-day outages that impacts hundreds of thousands of people? I know California has at times with wildfires, but other than that? Are these issues below the line for being considered "systemic"? I'm actually asking, not refuting using question marks.
- abadpoli 2y ago
  Both of those events were due to localized weather events that destroyed local power infrastructure (specifically, storms that destroyed overhead power lines). These are things that have not to do with federal regulations, which is the topic of this thread. And yes, other states have this problem as well. See https://poweroutage.us/about/majorevents https://poweroutage.us/about/majorevents.
- infecto 2y ago
  This is a pretty weak argument. I am not sure how the grid was supposed to prepare for the most recent storm.
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    I'm not making an argument, I have no "position" that I'm advancing. I've seen the headlines, I was asking for clarification on what made those different. I do think "storm preparedness" is not a category that should be excluded from consideration given their occurrence is also systemic (and may increase due to climate change), but I'm also open to how these outages differ from more systemic outages. The difference that makes sense to me is that federal regulations - the topic at play here - wouldn't have impacted these situations at all. Makes sense.
    - infecto 2y ago
      I don't believe you can fully prepare a grid for winds bringing down trees and residential/transmission lines. That's the distinction. The winter outage could have been handled better both from preparation and from the crisis management.
      - HelloMcFly 2y ago
        > I don't believe you can fully prepare a grid for winds bringing down trees and residential/transmission lines No, but perhaps you can have better plans for responding to such events, different staffing practices, temporary measures of some sort, etc.

nick238 2y ago

The average reliability rates cited (via US News rankings) explicitly exclude such major events. From the methodology page: Minutes of Power Outages: The number of minutes of power outages the average customer experiences in a year, excluding major events. (U.S. Energy Information Administration; 2022).