What went wrong with the Texas power grid? • Hacker News Board

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#51

Post by epistasis » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

terse_malvolio wrote: post #33

This is only a problem because we haven't figured out a good way to store electrical energy.

We have great ways of storing electricity, it's just that they're only getting built right now, and they're getting cheaper so fast that waiting a few years will get you a 30%+ discount off the price.

There are currently 17GW of batteries in the ERCOT interconnection queue for the coming years, for a grid that's only ~80GW. The ERCOT of 2025 will be massively different from the ERCOT of 2021, and it's going to mean a lot less gas, a lot more storage, and a lot more solar.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#52

Post by wnevets » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #44

magnawave wrote: post #18

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…

How hard can it be to have your own grid, but also have inputs on the edges to draw from? Or would that no longer be independent?

Regulations probably.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#53

Post by gitgreen » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #44

magnawave wrote: post #18

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…

How hard can it be to have your own grid, but also have inputs on the edges to draw from? Or would that no longer be independent?

The latter. They do not want federal regulation.

For the pedantic TX does have connections to other grids but the capacity is so low that it wouldn't have mitigated this event and is under whatever threshold is set for federal oversight.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#54

Post by afavour » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #44

magnawave wrote: post #18

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…

How hard can it be to have your own grid, but also have inputs on the edges to draw from? Or would that no longer be independent?

It would be independent from a practical point of view but from a regulatory one it would become subject to federal regulations, which is the real reason Texas keeps theirs separate.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#55

Post by UncleOxidant » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

svnpenn wrote: post #20

Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment. Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".

Hopefully that's 5C and not 5F.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#56

Post by masklinn » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #30

kbar13 wrote: post #10

is this the wakeup call that texans need to acknowledge that climate change isn't a coastal elite type thing, and that it affects us all and requires investment from all of us? imo texas is in a great spot to capitalize on the shift to green tech. they have strong engineering talent, large investments from the energy sector. car manufacturers are already clamoring to be the next to go fully electric. get your leaders…

Give me a break. Actually, the whole reason for this series of outages is because Texas took the bait and installed a bunch of solar and wind instead of taking the safe route and doubling down on coal. Peak energy consumption in Texas is almost always in summer when there's a lot of AC units running -- which just happens to be when solar and wind work best. They gambled on green, paid the price in the past few days,…

> the whole reason for this series of outages is because Texas took the bait and installed a bunch of solar and wind instead of taking the safe route and doubling down on coal.

That’s an outright lie. The vast majority of the missing production is in fossil plants.

Wind only accounts for about 20% of nameplate capacity, and has been performing above expectations for the period. And that’s with Texan wind being as un-weatherised at the rest (hint: when wind turbines work just fine in Montana or Washington State, if they freeze over it’s not because they’re wind turbines).

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#57

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #44

magnawave wrote: post #18

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…

How hard can it be to have your own grid, but also have inputs on the edges to draw from? Or would that no longer be independent?

[deleted]

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#58

Post by greenonions » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #55

svnpenn wrote: post #20

Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment. Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".

Hopefully that's 5C and not 5F.

Approximately zero chance that that would be 5C

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#59

Post by autoditype » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #44

magnawave wrote: post #18

The result was "an electrical island in the United States," Bill Magness, CEO of ERCOT, said. "That independence has been jealously guarded, I think both by policy makers and the industry." https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/16/texas-power-... Maybe it’s time to rethink that. HaI has an interesting take on something similar: Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo88zA5nq4Q Running your own grid seems cool…

How hard can it be to have your own grid, but also have inputs on the edges to draw from? Or would that no longer be independent?

From the articles I've read they do:

> Even today, ERCOT is also not completely isolated from other grids — as was evident when the state imported some power from Mexico during the rolling blackouts of 2011. ERCOT has three ties to Mexico and — as an outcome of the "Midnight Connection" battle — it also has two ties to the eastern U.S. grid, though they do not trigger federal regulation for ERCOT. All can move power commercially as well as be used in emergencies, according to ERCOT spokeswoman Dottie Roark. A possible sixth interconnection project, in Rusk County, is being studied, and another ambitious proposal, called Tres Amigas, would link the three big U.S. grids together in New Mexico, though Texas' top utility regulator has shown little enthusiasm for participating.

https://www.kvue.com/article/weather/texplainer-why-does-tex...

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#60

Post by masklinn » Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #55

svnpenn wrote: post #20

Dallas suburb here (Las Colinas). No power since Monday 6am. I had to get room at holiday inn. I actually got the room yesterday, but the hotel lost power after an hour, so I had to go back home and sleep in 5 degree apartment. Don't believe anything you read about "rolling outages". It's only rolling, if you define that as "out until it's not freezing anymore".

Hopefully that's 5C and not 5F.

I don’t think Texans are legally allowed to use non-freedom units.