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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?

#831

Post by dgellow »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #286
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".

Houston right now, haven't had power, nor water since yesterday. My room is sitting at 20ish degrees and has been all day. I've quite literally been snug under a load of blankets with my wife all day just to stay warm. My office back in Dallas which is not normally open offered to let people stay the night since they happen to be on the same grid as a hospital and I seriously considered trying to make it there today

Note to readers: If you're not from the US and confused about the 20 degrees (I was), note that it is Farhenheit and not Celsius! So around -6°C, which is of course very cold!

(edit: when you're on the internet, better to specify which unit you use, your audience is international)

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#832

Post by KMag »

Johnny555 wrote: post #693
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…

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 t…

I'm honestly surprised direct vent gas fireplaces are legal.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#833

Post by Cederfjard »

theshrike79 wrote: post #791
paraselene_ wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, instead of having a whole fireplace, just get a kerosene heater? Enough to heat a whole room in case of power&gas outages, last long enough through the night on one fill, and kerosene can be had at a gas station.

Pretty much anything actually built to heat stuff is better than the all-looks-no-function "fireplaces" the Americans seem to be in love with. The ones they like to mount their TVs over, despite the neck pain.

You have a slightly condescending tone here that I'm not sure is necessary. Perhaps they're "all-looks-no-function" because they're mostly meant to be decorative rather than functional?

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#834

Post by pas »

bhupy wrote: post #385
worker767424 wrote: post #94

The Texas-only grid was definitely part of it, and should be a lesson to people who thought the lesson from Covid is "do more locally." No, having stronger, longer distance connections is what makes you more resilient, at least when there are local problems.

On the flip side, the fact that we're talking about a Texas-specific outage means that the system actually worked as designed, in a degraded state. We generally try to incorporate redundancy and decentralization in systems design for the purpose of antifragility and graceful degradation. If something bad happens, best to isolate it so that it doesn't afflict everyone globally. At the time of this writing, every State…

It's not like extreme weather events getting more and more frequent weren't foretold long ago by those pesky climatologists...

Sure it's possible to learn from this, but the "efficiency" of that learning is predictably low.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#835

Post by pas »

fastball wrote: post #194
Retric wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can isolate yourself from cascading blackouts while still being able to share power. This is why they may cross several states, but never hit nationwide.

The Texas Interconnection has DC ties to the Eastern Interconnection, so... power can be shared.

Some comments claim that those connections have small capacity. (DC-DC interconnects are a lot more expensive than a synchronized grid.)

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#836

Post by KMag »

lultimouomo wrote: post #769
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering how rolling outages on the proposed schedules were supposed to work in this situation. If they gave everyone power 50% of the time, everyone would crank everything they have to the max during those periods to get some heat into their buildings. Unless their total ability to consume energy is less than 2x their average consumption, it's not going to help. To have any effect on overall power consumption,…

I wonder why it is not possible to reduce the max amount of power each house can draw by 50% instead of doing blackouts. In Italy houses have remotely controlled meters, if you change contract and have a different power allowance your meter gets reporgrammed without the need of an operator on site. This would force people to consume less power to avoid automatic detachment, while still not leaving them completely in…

I suspect smart meters are optional / being lazily phased-in. I've been out of the US for a decade, but I know my dad gets a discount on his electricity because he opted-in to a smart meter.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#837

Post by KMag »

maxnoe wrote: post #811
pault wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there were sub zero temperatures in Dallas last night.

How badly are your homes insulated that you get internal=external temperature in mere hours???

It has been a day or two, right? (Former Minnesotan, now living in Hong Kong, so slightly out of it, but familiar with -20F/-30C and occasionally -40F/-40C.)

I think enough air circulation to avoid your breath causing mildew everywhere will mean without a ton of thermal mass, your house is going to get within a few degrees of the daily high within a day or two.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#838

Post by varjag »

theshrike79 wrote: post #766
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…

> 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 that well. American fireplaces in general are a joke. You are just spending way too much energy and not really storing it anywhere except the air around it. They are built to look good, not to actually heat anything properly. Check any Nord…

There are absolutely countless iron fireplaces here in Norway, they been the most popular installations for decades.

The modern ones with afterburn contour are also quite efficient in energy output per unit fuel burned.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#839

Post by tallanvor »

theshrike79 wrote: post #766
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…

> 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 that well. American fireplaces in general are a joke. You are just spending way too much energy and not really storing it anywhere except the air around it. They are built to look good, not to actually heat anything properly. Check any Nord…

Why would most places bother with the expense of a fireplace really designed to heat a room?

I can assure you that most new construction in Oslo (pretty much only apartments these days) don't include fireplaces. And why would they? With steam pipes running through much of the city, there's no need for the expense and pollution involved with a fireplace except for show anyway.

The fact is that cities in the US, like in Europe, generally have very reliable power and gas supplies, so they don't need to build fireplaces designed to actually heat the place, and we don't want to encourage people in cities to burn wood to heat their place anyway. So showplace fireplaces, especially the gas ones, are a better solution for allowing people to have the cozy feeling when they want it.

Re: What went wrong with the Texas power grid?

#840

Post by fractionalhare »

theshrike79 wrote: post #791
paraselene_ wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, instead of having a whole fireplace, just get a kerosene heater? Enough to heat a whole room in case of power&gas outages, last long enough through the night on one fill, and kerosene can be had at a gas station.

Pretty much anything actually built to heat stuff is better than the all-looks-no-function "fireplaces" the Americans seem to be in love with. The ones they like to mount their TVs over, despite the neck pain.

I don't think you can generalize American fireplaces. Every fireplace I've personally encountered has been traditional wood burning and absolutely heats up the room well past the time the fire is actually lit (American Northeast). I haven't actually been in a home with a gas-burning fireplace.

But more importantly - the gas fireplaces are intended to look nice with minimal effort. They are explicitly not intended to change the indoor climate much if at all. They're usually built in very new homes that have dedicated, reliable climate control systems or in cities that don't require much heating.

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