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When I lived in Texas, we had a massive storm in winter of 2021 leaving many without power for a week. I was told that Texas maintained its own energy grid ind
by arjvik 9mo ago
When I lived in Texas, we had a massive storm in winter of 2021 leaving many without power for a week.
I was told that Texas maintained its own energy grid independent from the rest of the nation’s eastern and western grids, and supposedly only had a handful of high-voltage DC lines running between Texas’s and the rest of the nation’s. Supposedly this was why we couldn’t rely on excess capacity from anywhere else in the nation while our power generation capability was down.
But this map doesn’t seem to show Texas as isolated - there appear to be many lines in and out and no clear separation?
- 333c 9mo agoMore info on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Interconnection > The Texas Interconnection is maintained as a separate grid for political, rather than technical reasons
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- bob1029 9mo agoTexas is actually on ~4 different grids. I live north of Houston and I'm on MISO. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/ERCOT-geographic-footprint-Notes-The-labeled-regions-West-North-South-and-Houston_fig1_376030285 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/ERCOT-geographic-footpri...
- cwal37 9mo agoThat's not what that image means at all. If you look closely, you'll even see 3 additional colors, plus white, from the 4 I'm guessing you identified. Those are ERCOT load zones, a distinct concept and all within the ERCOT interconnection (grid). On the markets side, Texas is made up of ERCOT, and then has portions in (descending order) MISO, SPP, and the non-market West. In terms of "grids" Texas is mostly ERCOT, and then the Eastern Interconnection with a small smidge of Western Interconnection in the far west in El Paso Electric's territory.