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What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

houstonchronicle.com

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Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#691

Post by tyingq »

rst wrote: post #657
tyingq wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does look like they intended to roll, then figured out they didn't have enough capacity to roll. So, the people "rolled" first got stuck.

Rolling outages are when they've got enough power for some neighborhoods, but not all of them. Texas is so short of power right now that they've dropped power everywhere they can, excepting only certain critical facilities (hospitals, police), and continued operation of the grid itself -- a totally cold restart, they say, could take weeks.

A rolling outage would be relatively short in duration, and "roll" from one area to another. No roll happened here, just a bunch of areas off for long periods of time, and others not off at all.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#692

Post by sizzle »

kelnos wrote: post #502
gregw2 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: All 7 developers in my Houston team (semi-geographically scattered in the city) lost power; half for >24 hrs (it's 10-25 degrees F here for the last 2-3 days). Most lost water for some stretch of time and some still don't have it. I don't think any completely lost heat (most have gas) but at least one person found their gas fireplace they were hoping would heat them up when out of power didn't really work t…

In 1996 (or thereabouts), I lived in Maryland, and my family lost power for 6 days due to a snow/ice storm that took out a ton of power lines (water froze on them and the added weight pulled them down). We had no natural gas service, and our running water was provided by a well in the backyard that had an electric pump. So no electricity, heat, or running water for 6 days in ~20-30°F weather. (Fortunately we'd prepar…

Is there no CO2 danger from sleeping with gas stove on? Don’t people die from carbon monoxide poisoning from sleeping with open flames?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#693

Post by Johnny555 »

gregw2 wrote: post #213
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…

Anecdote: All 7 developers in my Houston team (semi-geographically scattered in the city) lost power; half for >24 hrs (it's 10-25 degrees F here for the last 2-3 days). Most lost water for some stretch of time and some still don't have it. I don't think any completely lost heat (most have gas) but at least one person found their gas fireplace they were hoping would heat them up when out of power didn't really work t…

at least one person found their gas fireplace they were hoping would heat them up when out of power didn't really work that well.

I have a gas fireplace, it's vented to the outside through a chimney.

If you sit right in front of it, you can feel a little radiant heat, but the true warmth comes from the electric fan that circulates air through the firebox that's heated from the gas flames. I'd always figured that if there was an extended power failure, I'd set up a 5V fan from my computer to blow air through the the fireplace.

Some gas fireplaces are "direct vent", which means that they vent the exhaust right into the room. I'd never trust one of those not to fill the room with Carbon Monoxide.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#694

Post by [deleted] »

JshWright wrote: post #276
monadic3 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas heaters still require electricity for basic management. I'd imagine heaters have batteries for specifically this case. If they don't, it's frankly a miracle if we don't lose anyone, and someone needs to get prosecuted.

It is not feasible to run a gas furnace off a battery (short of a "whole house" battery like a Powerball). It's more than just basic management. You need to run either a blower or a pump to distribute the heat throughout the house. You'd need a substantial battery to run a 1/3 HP motor for any length of time.

[deleted]

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#695

Post by pixl97 »

blake1 wrote: post #442
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…

AC transmission absolutely does work over large distances. It’s just not a point-to-point system. Imagine four cities in a row, all connected with AC. City A generates extra power, which gets sucked up by city B, whose power goes to the next city down the line, to city Z. Sure, it’s not actually that simple, but when was the last time NY literally had no power? They benefit from being highly connected. TX is paying f…

There is another problem here. Texas generates as much power as the second and third states on the generation list. The outage Texas had would have sagged most of the US.

Separate grids are great for other kinds of emergencies, if we get a big solar flare then the splits save each grid.

We need a east to west DC long distance interconnect to haul power across the country.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#696

Post by beerandt »

kelnos wrote: post #502
gregw2 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: All 7 developers in my Houston team (semi-geographically scattered in the city) lost power; half for >24 hrs (it's 10-25 degrees F here for the last 2-3 days). Most lost water for some stretch of time and some still don't have it. I don't think any completely lost heat (most have gas) but at least one person found their gas fireplace they were hoping would heat them up when out of power didn't really work t…

In 1996 (or thereabouts), I lived in Maryland, and my family lost power for 6 days due to a snow/ice storm that took out a ton of power lines (water froze on them and the added weight pulled them down). We had no natural gas service, and our running water was provided by a well in the backyard that had an electric pump. So no electricity, heat, or running water for 6 days in ~20-30°F weather. (Fortunately we'd prepar…

>Granted, the reason for that outage was very different from what happened in Texas

There are actually a lot of ice/ freezing-rain downed powerlines happening simultaneously with the rolling blackouts, and that's a huge part of the problem.

The grid/supply is being blamed for both. Of course if the lines weren't down, it would increase demand and there wouldn't magically be any more supply to feed them... but it does explain why a lot of people's blackouts aren't "rolling."

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#697

Post by Johnny555 »

com2kid wrote: post #230
lurquer wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you people for real? What did people with children, elderly, and pets do 150 years ago? If your house is 25f, put on a couple sweaters and a coat and have a beer. It’s not the end of the world. As far as the kids go, they’re outside building snowforts. In short, you make do. It astounds me that the typical HN poster can whip up a C++ compiler, pontificate about solutions to every social-ill, purport to speak inte…

> If your house is 25f, put on a couple sweaters and a coat and have a beer. It’s not the end of the world. Houses were designed very differently 150 years ago. Lower roofs, fewer windows, huge thick drapes or tapestries on the walls, animal skins or carpets on the floors. 9 ft windows (double pane or not) on all walls is going to leak out a lot of heat. Most importantly, fireplaces. Houses had fireplaces, and rooms…

I'd be surprised if a 150 year old house was insulated and sealed as well as a 20 year old house, even in Texas.

Though you're right that the old house likely had a wood burning heat source, but I'd imagine that there were times when wood was scarce. And that 150 year old fireplace would have sucked air out of the house, bringing in cold air through every air gap.

I looked it up, and wood has an R-value of around 1.4 per inch, so a log cabin with 6" walls would have an R-value of around R8, current building codes in Texas specify R15 for walls, R38 for roofs.

Single-pane windows have an R-value of around R1, energy efficient double panes, around R4 (triple paned can hit R9) so even though there are a lot more windows in a modern house, they have better insulation.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#698

Post by caf »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #454
pault wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in Austin, without power for almost 48 hours now. There’s ice in my roommate’s bedroom. It’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’m hearing that we won’t have power until Thursday at the earliest. I’ve gone beyond furious to just horribly depressed.

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…

Why don't pipes in areas prone to this sort of thing have some of cheaply replaceable burst disc relief valve, given how catastrophic an uncontrolled failure of the pipework is?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#699

Post by takeda »

Animats wrote: post #662
zero_deg_kevin wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are customers being asked to pay 20% more? 20 whole percent more?

20% is about what energy deregulation supposedly saved customers. Utilities regulated under rate-of-return regulation tended to overbuild and maintain large safety margins, because they could pass those costs along to the customer.

From my observation, typically it's 20% more in profits rather than 20% cheaper service.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#700

Post by [deleted] »

8note wrote: post #654
ranrotx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this is the thing no one is talking about. Dallas has easily added 10k apartment units in the past 5 years. Almost all of them are all electric (no gas heating). Considering it’s more energy efficient to cool with Air Conditioning on the hottest summer days than it is to heat with electricity in the winter, it’s no wonder the grid collapsed when the region was below freezing for several days and some generating…

Resistive electricity will be close to 100% efficient, and heat pumps even higher depending on the outdoor temperature. What kinda of air conditioners beat that for efficiency? I don't think we covered those in heat engines

[deleted]
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