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

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#511

Post by zamadatix » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

u678u wrote: post #74

Not many people are talking about home solar but its a real problem. Its nice to have your own solar power and then use the grid only when you need it. However that means you need idle power plants and transmission 90% of the year just for those cold un-sunny days. If power prices are regulated its a mugs game. I see bans on home solar coming. Maybe if you can disconnect from the grid with batteries it solves the pro…

People aren't talking about it because it's something like 0.2% of summer energy production in TX, a sunny state, so a very far off problem compared to pretty much any other power related issue or concern to solve for.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#512

Post by austincheney » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:39 AM 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".

I was out for 17 hours from yesterday to mid afternoon today. Slept through the 0deg weather without power and yet still kept the house at 43deg internally without a heat source.

Here is our simi-successful attempt to survive.

* boarded up all the windows and doors with sheets, curtains, and heavy drop clothes

* limit going outside to fewest essential trips

* close all bedrooms and abandon them. All pets and occupants sleep in close proximity in a common area

* we have lots of sleeping bags and mink blankets. It’s more about layers

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#513

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

windexh8er wrote: post #202

azernik wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. Hadn't thought of the snow-reflection boost. But yeah, cleaning off solar panels is a totally doable bit of maintenance in snowy conditions, or even just tilting and coating them so snow falls off. A human with a broom could make rover solar panels work for decades on Mars , we can do it in Minnesota.

I've never seen anyone cleaning them anywhere. Pretty sure the solar farms either have slightly warmed panels that will reduce the friction of any coverage enough to leverage the panel tilt - or since a lot of the installs will follow the sun anyway they probably have a mode of operation to "dump" the panels clean. I have someone coming out to go over a solar quote I had done, so have some new questions to ask!

The solar panels in my roof shed snow way faster than the shingles do. I suspect it's a combo of the angle plus them being slick glass rather than rough asphalt paper.

Maybe they're warmed too, I've never actually touched them.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#514

Post by qbasic_forever » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #484

qbasic_forever wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck, and here's some advice from a midwesterner that has dealt with cold, ice, and snow forever. If it's cold enough to start freezing things inside then make sure you have some water flowing in your pipes. Keep your kitchen sink running on a low (very tiny) dribble. Maybe even keep a shower/bathrub running at a very low rate too. You do NOT want to be dealing with frozen, broken flooding pipes on top of no pow…

That's not recommended for some areas of Texas. There's low water pressure and water has to be conserved.[1] (Edit: Houston only.) [1] https://www.wfaa.com/article/weather/if-dripping-faucets-sav...

Consult your local regulations of course. But frozen pipes are no joke and can turn a brand new, perfect home into a condemned tear-down, rebuild in a matter of hours.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#515

Post by jswizzy » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:40 AM UTC

gregw2 wrote: post #117

What went wrong is that the Texas legislature which owns Texas-specific grid process to avoid interference from the Feds didn't figure out how to also ensure Texas generator companies got compensated for weatherizing (and ensuring it was done). How many of the 24+6 recommendations from the NERC/FERC review of last time this happened in Texas (hint:2011) were taken up by the legislature or those at ERCOT they delegate…

wrong

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#516

Post by crshults » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:42 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #474

xxpor wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have sewer service, you'll usually have a septic tank instead. It's basically a mini waste treatment plant in your backyard, eventually the water will flow into the ground. Modern systems have pumps and such that depend on electricity to function.

I’ve never heard of a below ground septic system that required pumps. The only pumps for drainage are for sub level bathrooms such as in basements. There is a significant overlap of septic installations and wells and most modern wells run on electric. But if you’re toilet’s basin is full, it doesn’t need any power to flush and drain. It just won’t fill again.

When one of the pumps on my aerobic system died a few years back it was less than 24 hours before the drains were backed up. If your soil won't pass a perc test I guess you can just go with aerobic which allows you to build pretty much anywhere. The final stage sprays effluent on your yard.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#517

Post by cat199 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:42 AM UTC

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…

> Running your own grid seems cool Texas style, until you have a regional problem and have no where to turn.

This cuts both ways, and most of the rest country is often a benefactor - many US/NA companies (and I'm assuming govt/military) have a 3rd DR location on the TX grid precisely because it provides an additional point of redundancy. TX also wasn't impacted by CA mismanagement of it's grid, for example..

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#518

Post by tjr225 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:44 AM UTC

arrosenberg wrote: post #403

hotsauceror wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had an incident early this AM and of the eight people we paged, only one had power. I’ve been without power, heat, internet, water, or septic more than 90 minutes at a time for two days. My house was 44 degrees this morning when I woke up. Sunday night we were without power or heat for seven and a half hours. Our DR plan didn’t really account for all of our staff being on the same power grid!

Remote workers just became a resiliency requirement for businesses.

You would think so but there were rolling blackouts during the bay area/socal fire season last year and nobody seemed to change course. I wonder if it’s because a lot of companies in the Bay Area already had remote workers?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#519

Post by txlpo78 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:44 AM UTC

reportingsjr wrote: post #301

txlpo78 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing I said in my comment is incorrect. Texas has 5 different connections with the other grids and can import/export through them. But they are irrelevant right now because the other grids do not have enough spare capacity to send to Texas. >If Texas was part of the Western grid they could be drawing excess hydroelectric power from the pacific northwest right now for example. Texas also could have contributed to h…

This does not seem to be true at all. If you look at a power outage map of Texas you can actually see exactly where the ERCOT boundaries are. Everyone else in Texas that's on the other, federal, grids, are not experiencing widespread power outages. https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas http://www.ercot.com/content/wcm/landing_pages/89373/ERCOT-I... https://poweroutage.us/area/state/oklahoma Per your comment about l…

https://www.kmbc.com/article/southwest-power-pool-again-orde...

Oklahoma has been dealing with rolling blackouts for the past several days. Tell me why this is, since apparently you think Oklahoma is able to magically get power transferred to them all the way from Washington? If WA has the excess capacity, why are Oklahomans still without power?

> Everyone else in Texas that's on the other, federal, grids, are not experiencing widespread power outages.

Completely wrong. Eastern Texas (eg Orange), which is under MISO, and is dealing with blackouts. And parts of the Texas panhandle like Lubbock, which is also not part of the Texas grid, is also struggling with power outages.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#520

Post by zamadatix » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

bouncycastle wrote: post #510

I wonder if this is related to bitcoin mining? ( https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-farms-in-texas-offli... ) Sure, they claimed that they turned it off, but there will always be someone who doesn't turn it off, especially when the bitcoin prices are going up astronomically. Rising electricity price doesn't matter. Also, they hold up the "floor price" for electricity and push it up, meaning that electricity pric…

Even if all of the bitcoin mining in the world happened in TX and 0% of them shut down it'd still just be 1/4 the normal power draw in the state (121 TWh vs 429 TWh), far less than the demand increase due to the cold or current production/demand gap.